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DISCOURSE 


BEFORE  THE 


YOUNG    MEN'S 
COLONIZATION   SOCIETY 

OF 

PENNSYLVANIA, 

DELIVERED  OCTOBER  24,  1834,  IN  ST.  PAUI/S  CHURCH,  PHILADELPHIA. 

BY 

j.  R.  ITYSON. 


WITH    A    NOTICE    OF    THE   PROCEEDINGS    OF    THE    SOCIETY,   AND    OF 

THEIR  FIRST  EXPEDITION  OF  COLOURED  EMIGRANTS  TO 

FOUND  A  COLONY  AT  BASSA  COVE. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED   FOR   THE   SOCIETY, 

1834. 


LIST  OF  OFFICERS 


^owtfl  MM*  <a*lonf?atfoitSocfetfi 


PATRONS. 

James  Madison,  of  Va.  Gerrit  Smith,  Esq.  N.  Y. 

Chief  Justice  Marshall,  do.         Elliott  Cresson,  Esq. 
Rt.  Rev.  Wm.  White,  D.D.         Wm.  Short,  Esq. 

PRESIDENT. 
REV.  JOHN  BRECKINRIDGE. 

VICE  PRESIDENTS. 

Jos.  R.  Ingersoll,  Esq.  Rev.  W.  H.  De  Lancey,  D.D. 

Rev.  A.  Barnes,  Rev.  H.  A.  Boardman, 

Dr.  John  Bell,  Gerard  Ralston,  Esq. 

Matthew  Newkirk,  Esq.  Alexander  Mitchell,  M.  D. 

Benjamin  Naglee,  Esq.  Joseph  Dugan,  Esq. 
Hon.  Joseph  M'llvaine, 

TREASURER. 

LLOYD  MIFFLIN. 

SECRETARIES. 

Foreign  Correspondence  —  ELLIOTT  CRESSON. 

Domestic  Correspondence  —  Rev.  W.  A.  M'DowELL,  D.D. 

Recording  —  TOPLIFF  JOHNSON. 

MANAGERS. 

Samuel  Jaudon,  James  N.  Dickson, 

Richard  D,  Wood,  Lewis  R.  Ashhurst, 

William  M.  Muzzey,  Clark  Gulp, 

George  W.  North,  Henry  S.  Spackman, 

Samuel  W.  Hallowcll,  Rev.  John  W.  James, 

Rev.  J.  A.  Peabody,  John  Hockley, 

Solomon  Caldwell,  Benjamin  Coates, 

William  M.  Collins,  Samuel  Magarge, 

Jarnes  A.  Porteus,  Benjamin  D.  Johnson, 

J.  Houston  Mifflin,  Robert  B.  Davidson, 

Charles  Naylor,  W.  M.  McMain, 

'  Rev.  Robert  Baird,  Rev.  George  W.  Bethune. 


Printed  by  William  S.  Martien, 
No.  9  George  street. 


'-  T5 


AT    A    MEETING    OF    THE    BoARD    OP    MANAGERS    of   the 

Young  Men's  Colonization  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  held 
November  llth,  1834,  the  following  Resolution,  offered  by 
Dr.  JOHN  BELL,  was  unanimously  and  cordially  approved, 
viz: 

Resolved,  That  the  BOARD  OF  MANAGERS,  in  the  name  of 
the  SOCIETY,  return  their  grateful  acknowledgments  to  JOB 
R.  TYSON,  Esq.  for  his  appropriate  and  excellent  DISCOURSE, 
delivered  before  the  Young  Men's  Colonization  Society  of 
Pennsylvania,  on  the  24th  of  October,  1834,  and  that  a  copy 
of  the  same,  be  requested  of  the  Author  for  publication. 

Extract  from  the  Minutes. 

TOPLIFF  JOHNSON, 

Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Managers. 
Philadelphia,  Dec.  5,  1834. 


PREFATORY   REMARKS. 


The  Author  of  the  following  Discourse  will  regret  if  it  should  give  pain  to 
any  person  or  party.  He  himself  belongs  to  no  party  whatever.  The  call 
which  was  made  upon  him,  imposed  the  duty  of  expressing  his  opinions  fully 
arid  fearlessly,  and  he  trusts  that  he  has  discharged  the  obligation  in  a  spirit  of 
temperance  and  candour.  As  it  is  of  little  moment  to  others  what  opinions  he 
may  choose  to  entertain  or  express,  his  chief  solicitude  has  been  lest  the  cause 
might  be  injured  by  his  lame  exposition  and  imperfect  defence. 

The  writer  does  not  intend  to  become  a  gladiator  in  this  arena.  He  hopes, 
therefore,  to  be  pardoned  for  saying,  that  the  limits  prescribed  to  an  oration, 
precluded  that  full  array  of  fact  and  argument  which  the  topic  requires. 
From  this  cause,  he  has  left  untouched  several  considerations  which  he  would 
gladly  have  introduced,  and  been  prevented  from  pursuing  others  which  are 
barely  started.  Some  of  these  are  concisely  hinted  at  in  the  form  of  notes. 

Owing  to  the  necessity  of  compression  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  want  of 
skill  on  the  other,  he  has,  no  doubt,  been  guilty  of  the  fault  noticed,  after 
Horace,  by  Boileau: 

«J  £vite  d'etre  long,  et  je  deviens  obscur." 


DISCOURSE. 


ON  this  day  has  sailed  from  the  port  of  Norfolk,  the  good 
ship  Ninus,  laden  with  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  of  the 
enfranchised  sons  and  daughters  of  Africa.  Like  the  worthy 
and  persecuted  associates  of  William  Penn,  these  voyagers 
seek  shelter  from  oppression  in  a  foreign  clime.  Delivered 
from  the  fetters  of  bondage  by  the  active  philanthropy  of 
this  association,  they  seek,  in  the  establishment  of  a  new 
colony,  the  enjoyment  of  freedom.  They  embark,  the  first 
emigrants  to  the  Pennsylvan  Colony ',  on  the  one  hundred 
and  fifty-second  anniversary  of  the  arrival  of  Penn,  with  the 
first  English  settlers,  on  the  shores  of  the  Delaware!  With 
a  coincidence  so  remarkable,  an  omen  so  auspicious,  may  the 
vessel  spread  her  canvass  to  benignant  winds!  Bearing  with 
her  the  elements  of  an  independent  empire,  may  Heaven 
penetrate  the  hearts  of  her  passengers  with  the  magnitude  of 
their  enterprise,  and  illumine  their  minds  to  direct  it  with 
wisdom!  What  friend  of  humanity  will  refuse  his  gratitude 
and  joy,  at  the  rescue  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  human 
beings  from  the  jaws  of  slavery?  Who  will  not  sympathise 
with  those  pleasurable  and  intense  emotions,  which  the  event 
is  calculated  to  excite  in  the  hearts  of  its  fortunate  instru 
ments  ? 

The  reflections  which  the  departure  of  this  band  of  adven 
turers  must  awaken,  are  peculiar  and  cheering.  In  the  pos 
session  of  present  comfort,  and  joyous  with  anticipations  of 
unqualified  freedom  and  future  plenty,  how  unlike  the  condi 
tion  of  their  unhappy  ancestors,  borne  from  the  cherished 


6 

land  of  their  fathers,  with  the  cruel  prospect  before  them  of 
perpetual  exile  and  hopeless  servitude!  To  the  mind  of  sen 
sibility  it  is  consoling  to  reflect,  that  we  restore  to  Africa,  as 
intelligent  and  free,  the  posterity  of  her  sons,  whom  we  re 
ceived  as  barbarous  and  enslaved!  It  is  consoling  to  reflect, 
that  we  send  them  not  e empty  away,'  but  carrying  the  fruits 
of  light  and  knowledge,  and  capable  of  scattering  their  pre 
cious  seeds  upon  a  soil  which  has  lain  neglected  and  buried, 
for  centuries,  in  the  grossest  ignorance  and  night. 

Such  is  the  first  step  which  the  Young  Men's  Colonization 
Society  of  Pennsylvania  have  taken  in  this  sphere  of  bene 
volent  exertion.  The  origin  of  the  body  is  but  of  yesterday; 
but  its  active  existence  has  been  the  means  of  conferring 
important  benefits  upon  the  parent  Institution.  It  has  infused 
into  its  veins  the  inspiriting  virtue  of  youthful  blood,  with 
its  impulsive  energy.  As  a  branch  of  the  chief  establish 
ment  at  Washington,  it  will  act  upon  similar  views,  and  aim 
at  similar  results. 

As  an  association  formed  in  Pennsylvania,  guiding  and 
directing  the  destinies  of  a  colony  bearing  its  honoured 
name,  it  will  seek  the  establishment  of  those  cardinal  doc 
trines  of  government  which  rendered  Penn  illustrious,  and 
his  province  happy.  It  will  imitate  the  colonial  policy  of  a 
Founder,  conceded  to  be  far-sighted  and  virtuous.  It  will 
infix  as  corner-stones  in  the  Pennsylvan  fabric  the  princi 
ples  which  he  inculcated  and  practised  ;  the  principles  of 
toleration  and  temperance — of  unbroken  faith  and  universal 
peace.  It  will  aim,  in  unison  with  the  parent  Society,  at 
those  practical  blessings  to  the  American  negro  and  the  native 
African,  which  it  was  the  great  design  of  that  institution  to 
promote  and  subserve. 

The  occasion,  therefore,  is  opportune  to  recall  the  reasons 
which  suggested  the  formation  of  the  American  Colonization 
Society,  and  to  take  a  glance  at  her  leading  principles  and 
purposes,  as  they  are  understood  and  acted  upon  in  Penn 
sylvania. 

The  distinguished  honour  of  proposing  a  Society,  as  it  was 
afterwards  modelled,  for  the  colonization  of  the  free  blacks 


upon  the  coast  of  Africa,  belongs  to  Dr.  Finley,  of  New 
Jersey.  It  dates  its  existence,  as  an  organized  company,  in 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1817,  upwards  of  thirty  years 
after  the  formation  of  the  Abolition  Society  of  Pennsylvania, 
the  parent  of  perhaps  all  the  similar  institutions  in  this  coun 
try.  Let  us  survey  the  wide  field  of  enterprise  which  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  the  degraded  and  wretched  sons 
of  Africa  presented,  at  that  period,  to  the  mind  of  enlight 
ened  benevolence. 

The  introduction  of  negro  slavery  into  this  country  be 
longs  to  its  provincial  history.  It  must  go  in  reduction  of 
that  debt  which  we  owe  to  our  ancestors — it  is  an  incum- 
brance  connected  with  our  English  inheritance.  Thirteen 
years  after  the  settlement  on  the  James  river,  a  ship  load 
of  Africans,  from  the  coast  of  Guinea,  was  sold  to  the  planters. 
Multitudes,  in  Virginia  and  the  other  colonies,  were  soon 
after  added.  New  supplies  were  in  a  course  of  constant  arrival. 
At  length  the  influx  becoming  onerous,  and  the  injustice  of 
the  traffic  apparent,  further  importation  was  prohibited  by 
law.  Slaves  being  thus  admitted,  and  being  cherished  in  the 
southern  latitudes  on  account  of  their  alleged  necessity  and 
great  number,  the  revolution  swept  by  without  effecting  their 
emancipation.  Legal  provision  has  since  been  made  for  the 
gradual  removal  of  slavery  in  the  states  north  of  the  Poto 
mac,  but  on  the  south  it  continues  to  exist  without  a  sen 
sible  change. 

In  other  countries  servitude  has  no  doubt  been  in  practice, 
more  oppressive,  being  less  restrained  by  benignant  legisla- 
lation  and  the  moral  tone  of  society.  The  laws  in  all  the 
slave-holding  states,  protect  the  slave  in  the  enjoyment  of 
those  qualified  rights  which  are  compatible  with  its  recogni 
tion,  as  a  legal  system.  But  with  these  assuasives  the  sys 
tem  prevails,  and  is  attended  with  too  many  revolting  ap 
pendages  ever  to  have  the  approbation  of  disinterested  and 
dispassionate  men.  It  is  opposed  to  the  genius  of  our  insti 
tutions,  and  at  war  with  that  principle  of  human  equality 
which  forms  at  once  our  political  profession  and  our  national 
boast.  It  sinks  its  unhappy  victim  to  the  dust,  and  prevents 


8 

him  from  growing  to  that  moral  and  intellectual  stature  be 
fitting  the  dignity  of  a  sentient  being. 


y«p  t'apE'tqs  ttrtolvvvtai 

fvS  av     iv  wtot,  dxfaov  '^fta    'eX'tfM'.  —  Od.   17.  323. 


Its  effects  upon  the  master  who  lives  under  it,  and  upon  the 
country  which  tolerates  it,  are  only  less  baleful  and  ruinous. 
Look  for  a  moment  at  the  condition  of  our  southern  country, 
where,  as  well  in  its  moral  as  its  physical  aspects,  can  be 
seen  the  sweeping  desolation  of  its  blight.  The  vice  of  indo 
lence,  and  those  other  vices  which  march  in  the  train  of  inac 
tion,  are  but  too  perceptible  on  every  hand.  With  all  the 
advantages  of  a  favourable  position  for  commerce,  a  genial 
climate  and  luxuriant  soil,  we  find  deserted  wharves,  grass 
grown  streets,  and  exhausted  fallows.  Instead  of  the  hardy 
race  which  should  fix  upon  solid  ground  the  deep  foundations 
of  our  republican  edifice,  we  find  them  luxurious  and  effemi 
nate,  unequal  to  those  vigorous  exertions  which  a  new  system 
in  a  new  country  requires.*  Those  who  cannot  maintain  the 
style  of  gentlemen,  seek  subsistence  in  other  states  where 
labour  is  honourable  and  its  recompense  less  contingent. 
Thus  sapped  of  its  strength,  its  enterprising  spirits  banished 
by  an  inexorable  necessity  —  its  magnificent  fields  neglected 
and  uncultivated  —  its  inhabitants  emasculate  by  indulgence, 

"  The  country  blooms  a  garden  and  a  grave." 

To  change  so  lamentable  a  condition  of  things  —  to  restore 
man  to  his  civil  dignity,  if  not  his  native  worth—  to  wrest 


*  Montesquieu  attempts  to  lessen  our  estimate  of  the  evils  of  servitude,  in 
despotic  countries,  by  alleging  that  the  condition  of  a  slave  is  hardly  more 
burdensome  than  that  of  a  subject.  Though  his  ideas  of  the  African  race  and 
of  negro  slavery,  are  alike  abhorrent  and  unphilosophical,  (See  Sp.  L.  15  B.  5 
chap.)  he  is  nevertheless  aware  of  the  inconsistency  of  slavery  with  political 
institutions  which  aim  at,  or  establish  equality.  In  relation  to  such  govern- 
ments,  he  says,  "  slavery  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution;  it  only  con 
tributes  to  give  a  power  and  luxury  to  the  citizens  which  they  ought  not  to 
have:1  (Sp.  L.  15  B.  1  Chap.)  Of  its  effects  upon  the  master,  he  says,  "he 
contracts  all  manner  of  bad  habits  with  his  slaves,  he  accustoms  himself  in 
sensibly  to  the  want  of  all  moral  virtues,  he  grows  fierce,  hasty,  severe,  volup 
tuous  and  cruel." — Sp.  L.  15  B.  1.  Chap. 


from  destruction  those  virtues  which  droop  if  they  be  not 
carefully  cherished — were  among  the  original  objects  of  the 
Abolition    Society  of   Pennsylvania.     This  institution  was 
composed  of  men  of  the  first  distinction  and  merit;    men 
who,  fired  by  that  liberty  which  the  revolution  established, 
were   willing  to   render   that   liberty  universal.     They  la 
boured  for  the  general  cause  of  the  African,  both  bond  and 
free.     Though  legal  emancipation  was  the  primary  object 
of   their  convention,  their   comprehensive   and    benevolent 
plan  embraced  in  connexion  with   it,  the  abolition  of   the 
slave  trade,  and  the  assistance  and  elevation  of  the  African 
race.     Schools  were  formed  under  competent  teachers,  and 
these  were  watched  with  the  most  anxious  and  unremitted 
assiduity.     The  operations  of   the   Society,  as  a  corporate 
body,  were  commenced  in  the  year  1789,  but  it  has,  in  fact, 
been    in    energetic   agency,   since    about    the   year    1785. 
Nearly  half   a  century  has  witnessed  the  devoted   zeal  of 
this  philanthropic  institution.     Is  it  premature  or  invidious 
to  inquire  by  what  fruits  its  efforts  have  been  distinguished  ? 
After  the  lapse  of  so  many  years,  after  the  application  of 
intense  and  persevering  labour,  if  success  has  neither  been 
realized   nor  loomed  at  a  distance,  is  it  unfair  or  unreason 
able  to  doubt  the  final  result  of  the  experiment? 

The  abolition  of  our  system  of  slavery  in  Pennsylvania 
was  in  1780,  a  period  of  nearly  five  years  before  the  organi 
zation  of  the  Abolition  Society.  Is  it  a  derogation  from  its 
claim  to  unquestioned  benevolence  to  deny  to  it,  as  a  body, 
any  instrumentality  in  the  enactment  of  the  abolition  law  ? 
The  association  was  not  in  being  at  the  period  of  its  passage. 
The  merit  of  the  measure  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  profound 
sense  entertained  by  the  legislature,  of  the  injustice  and 
evils  of  slavery,  incited  as  they  were  by  Benezet*  and  other 
distinguished  philanthropists. 

The  statute  abolished  hereditary  servitude,  and  provided 

*  In  the  Life  of  Benezet,  page  92,  I  find  the  following  account  of  his  instru 
mentality  in  the  passage  of  the  act.     "  During  the  sitting  of  the  legislature 
in  1780,  a  session  memorable  for  the  enaction  of  a  law  which  commenced  the 
2 


10 

for  the  freedom  of  the  future  generation  of  existing  slaved, 
but  those  who  were  then  in  existence  received  no  benefit 
from  its  provisions.*     In  1790,  which  was  ten  years  after 
the  passage  of  the  act,  and  five  after  the  formation  of  the 
Society,  there  were  nearly  four  thousand  slaves  in  the  state. 
The  number  has  been  gradually  diminishing,  but  at  the  census 
of  1830,  there  were  in  Pennsylvania,  sixty-seven  slaves,  the 
most  of  whom  will  irremediably  continue  till  death,  the  abso 
lute  property   of    their    masters. t      This  remnant  of    legal 
bondage  has   remained   unimpaired   and    unaffected   by  the 
exertions  of  the   A  bolition  Society,  whose  laudable  zeal  in 
the  maintenance  of  human  rights,  must  be  greatly  scandalised 
by   its    continuance.      In    Connecticut    and    Rhode   Island 
slavery  was  abolished  four  years  after  its  inheritable  quality 
was  expunged  from  the  code  of  Pennsylvania,   but  slaves 
were  permitted  to  exist,  and  are  now  actually  in  being,  by 
the  operation  of  their  statutes.     In  New  Jersey,  according 
to  the  census  of   1830,  there  existed  the  large  number  of 
two  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-six  slaves. 

Nor  must  a  fact  be  omitted  in  this  connexion,  that  the 
rapid  diminution  of  slaves  at  the  north,  is  not  solely  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  virtue  of  unaided  statutes,  but  partly  to  sales 


gradual  abolition  of  slavery  in  Pennsylvania,  he  had  private  interviews  on  the 
subject,  with  every  member  of  the  government,  and  no  doubt  thus  essentially 
contributed  to  the  adoption  of  that  celebrated  measure." — Life  of  Anthony 
Benezet  by  Roberts  Vaux. 

*  In  the  case  of  Miller  v.  Dwilling,  decided  in  the  year  1826,  and  reported 
in  the  14th  volume  of  Sergeant  and  Rawle's  Reports,  page  442,  Judge  Tilgh- 
man  was  called  upon  to  give  a  construction  to  the  act  of  1780.  He  decides 
several  interesting  points,  the  first  of  which  is,  "  That  the  legislature,  anxious 
as  it  was  to  abolish  slavery,  thought  it  unjust  to  violate  the  right  which  every 
owner  of  a  slave  had  to  his  service  ;  and,  therefore,  every  person  who,  at  the 
time  of  passing  the  act,  was  a  slave,  was  to  remain  a  slave." 

f  The  number  of  slaves  in  Pennsylvania,  as  returned  in  the  census  of  1830, 
is  three  hundred  and  eighty-six.  I  have  adopted  in  the  text  the  number  re 
ported  by  a  select  Committee  of  the  Senate  of  Pennsylvania,  who  were  ap 
pointed  to  investigate  the  cause  of  the  increase  since  the  year  1820,  when  the 
number  returned  was  but  two  hundred  and  eleven.  The  Committee  exclude 
from  the  computation  all  who  were  not  in  being  when  the  abolition  act  was 
passed.  Vide  Journal  of  the  Senate  for  1832-3,  page  483. 


11 

made  to  persons  in  the  slave-holding  districts,  in  anticipation 
or  fraud  of  the  law.  Thus  many  unfortunate  men,  whose 
posterity  by  law  would  be  free,  or  whose  personal  servitude 
would  expire  at  a  given  period,  by  being  sent  beyond  the 
pale  of  our  jurisdiction,  became  bound  by  new  and  infrangi 
ble  fetters.  In  the  adjoining  states  of  Delaware,  Maryland, 
and  Virginia,  legal  servitude  survives.  If  a  sentiment  has 
been  imbibed  in  either,  or  all  of  these,  unfavourable  to  its 
continuance,  it  is  only  justice  and  candour  to  admit  that  it 
has  arisen  from  the  efforts  of  their  own  philanthropists,  and 
the  influence  of  those  internal  causes  which  foreign  argu 
ment  or  remonstrance  could  neither  prevent  nor  accelerate. 
The  whole  South  may  be  appealed  to  for  the  truth  of 
the  assertion,  that  certain  measures,  ascribed  there  to  the 
Abolition  Societies,  in  exciting  estrangement  and  hostility 
towards  the  North,  have. had  the  effect  of  silencing  inquiry 
into  the  justice  or  policy  of  the  system.  Ill-judging  indivi 
duals  have  greatly  contributed  to  this  alienation  and  repug 
nance.  Assuming,  as  a  principle,  that  man  could  not  be 
legitimately  the  subject  of  property,  it  was  thought  to  be  a 
meritorious  act  to  screen  from  re-capture,  the  fugitive  who 
should  seek  an  asylum  within  our  borders.  Numerous  fugi 
tives  from  the  southern  states  have  thus  been  enabled,  either 
by  connivance  or  active  assistance,  to  elude  the  pursuit  of 
their  masters.  In  vain  was  it  alleged,  that  the  re-delivery  of 
the  slave  to  his  legal  owner,  was  a  right  recognised  in  the 
federal  Constitution,  and  protected  by  express  legislative 
enactment.*  In  vain  was  it  predicted  that  such  resistance 


*  The  2d  Section  of  the  4th  Art.  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  pro- 
vides,  that  "  no  person  held  to  service  or  labour  in  one  state,  under  the  laws 
thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation 
therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labour,  but  shall  be  delivered  up, 
on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  labour  or  service  is  due."  A  similar 
provision  in  regard  to  fugitives  from  justice,  immediately  precedes  this 
rule  in  regard  to  slaves.  The  learned  Du  Ponceau,  in  his  "  Brief  View  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  thus  expresses  his  sense  of  this  two-fold 
provision,  page  45:  "Fugitives  from  justice,  and  from  personal  service  or 
labour,  are  to  be  delivered  up,  on  being  demanded  in  the  manner  prescribed  by 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws  made  in  pursuance  thereof,"  Accordingly,  an 


12 

to  rights,  acknowledged  by  the  laws  of  a  sister  state,  would 
kindle  into  a  flame  those  jealousies  and  suspicions  which  the 
accidents  of  commerce  too  frequently  engender  between  in 
dependent  and  contiguous  states.  In  vain  were  his  abettors 
reminded  of  the  effects  which  such  interference  must  inevita 
bly  produce,  in  tightening  the  bonds  of  the  slave  by  all  such 
additional  cords  as  the  security  of  his  person  at  home  would 
render  necessary.  In  vain  were  they  admonished  that  the 
retention  of  a  fugitive  would  prove  injurious  to  the  interests 
of  Philadelphia,  by  the  invitation  it  offered  to  others  to  make 
this  city  their  refuge.  In  vain  were  they  solemnly  adjured, 
that  by  exciting  indignant  feelings  at  the  south,  they  marred 
the  prospect  of  legislative  emancipation — that  by  concealing 
or  harbouring  a  few  runaways,  sometimes  the  worst  of  the 
class,  they  forged  new  manacles  for  those  who  remained  in 
bondage.  Persuasion  and  remonstrance  too  often  proved 
wholly  ineffectual ;  for  what  could  these  effect  against  a  line 
of  conduct  prompted  by  compassion  for  the  slave,  and  the 
belief  that  it  was  a  sacred  duty  to  protect  him?* 

act  of  Congress  was  passed  on  the  12th  of  February,  1793,  entitled,  "An  act 
respecting  fugitives  from  justice,  and  persons  escaping  from  the  service  of  their 
masters."  The  object  of  this  enactment  was  to  point  out  the  mode  by  which 
fugitive  slaves  shall  be  restored  to  their  masters  in  the  states  from  which  they 
may  have  escaped.  The  Abolition  Act  of  Pennsylvania,  which  became  a  law 
upwards  of  seven  years  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  is  very  explicit  upon  the  subject  of  fugitive  slaves  from  other  States, 
although  it  aimed  at  the  ultimate  destruction  of  our  domestic  slavery.  The 
llth  section  provides,  "  that  the  said  act,  or  any  thing  contained  in  it,  should 
not  give  any  relief  or  shelter  to  any  absconding  or  runaway  negro  or  mulatto 
slave  or  servant,  who  had  absented  himself,  or  should  absent  himself  from  his 
or  her  owner,  master,  or  mistress,  residing  in  any  other  state  or  country,  but 
such  owner,  master,  or  mistress  should  have  like  right  and  aid  to  demand, 
claim,  and  take  away  his  slave  or  servant,  as  he  might  have  had  in  case  the 
said  act  had  not  been  made."  It  can  hardly  create  surprise,  that  the  slave 
holder,  smarting  under  pecuniary  loss,  should  feel  little  respect  for  the  man 
whose  philanthropy  could  lead  him  to  violate  rights  which  were  thus  recog 
nised  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  by  act  of  Congress,  and  by  the 
local  legislation  of  his  own  state. 

*  Among  the  old  abolitionists  who  paid  respect  to  the  legal  institutions  of 
the  country,  I  may  name  the  late  Elisha  Tyson,  of  Baltimore,  whose  efforts  in 
the  cause  of  abolition  were  so  successful,  that  he  is  said  to  have  been  instru 
mental  in  liberating,  during  his  life,  two  thousand  slaves  from  bondage  !  His 


13 

I  do  not  impute  to  the  Society,  as  a  body,  the  maintenance 
of  such  principles  or  their  reduction  into  practice.  Its  vene 
rable  and  distinguished  President*  never  would  sanction  or 
connive  at  a  course  of  action  so  hostile  to  sound  policy,  and 
the  dominion  of  municipal  and  constitutional  law.  But 
whoever  may  have  been  instrumental  in  producing  it,  the 
consequence  is  a  decided  repugnance  at  the  South  to  all  the 
acts  of  Abolition  Societies.  Their  counsels  are  derided  or 
bitterly  laughed  at,  and  their  speeches  and  tracts,  being 
branded  as  <  incendiary,'  are  neither  listened  to  nor  regarded. 
Nothing  emanating  from  such  a  quarter,  receives  the  decency 
of  respect  or  attention.  When  the  tranquillity  of  sober  re 
flection  is  disturbed  by  objects  of  excitement,  it  is  easy  to 
adopt  extravagant  sentiments  and  to  suggest  new  and  plau 
sible  reasons  in  their  defence.  It  was  in  this  state  of  the 
public  sensibilities  at  the  South,  that  the  doctrine  of  state 
rights  was  appealed  to  for  the  purpose  of  opposing  the  en 
croachments  of  Northern  philanthropists.  The  cry  was  heard, 
that  their  laws  were  insulted  and  their  property  invaded  by 
men  who  had  nothing  to  lose  by  the  toleration  or  extinction 
of  slavery;  that  a  society  of  another  state  which  had  abolished 
its  domestic  system,  were  assailing  their  own  local  institu 
tions.  The  pride  of  the  South  coming  to  the  aid  of  its  pas 
sions  and  interest  soon  extinguished  all  hope  of  affecting  their 


intelligent  biographer  says:  "During  the  whole  course  of  Mr.  Tyson's  philan 
thropic  exertions,  he  was  strongly  characterized  for  the  profound  deference 
which  he  paid  to  the  laws  of  the  land.  *  *  *  Not  only  because 
this  is  one  of  the  conditions  upon  which  every  citizen  has  a  right  to  continue 
in  the  community,  but  also  because  the  encouraging  of  disobedience  to  the 
laws  in  one  respect,  would  be  the  promoting  of  it  in  another ;  disobedience 
would  grow  into  rebellion,  and  rebellion  end  in  the  total  subversion  of  the 
state.  It  was  for  these  reasons  that  his  appeals  in  behalf  of  the  persecuted 
Africans  were  made  either  to  the  clemency  of  individuals,  or  to  the  justice  of 
the  civil  judge.  *  *  *  But  those  cases  wherein  argument  and 

persuasion  were  unavailable,  he  submitted  to  the  legal  tribunals  of  the  country ; 
and  having  placed  them  there,  left  them  to  the  future  care  of  those  whose  oaths 
bound  them  to  do  justice." — Life  of  Elisha  Tyson,  p.  13,  14. 

*  William  Rawle  LL.  D.  the  author  of  the  well  known  and  able  work  on  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 


14 

system  of  slavery,  except  through  the  agency  of  bodies 
formed  by  themselves,  and  of  measures  in  which  they  couW 
personally  co-operate.  Legislative  emancipation,  as  a  phan 
tom,  thus  eluded  their  grasp.  Other  important  objects  now 
claimed  their  attention.  These  were  the  destruction  of  the 
slave  trade;  the  protection  of  the  personal  rights  of  the  man 
of  colour;  and  the  exaltation  of  his^moral  and  mental  being. 
The  department  of  elevating  the  negro,  a  duty  of  the  most 
pleasing  but  delicate  and  arduous  nature,  must,  if  properly 
understood,  lead  to  the  most  beneficial  results.  In  this  pro 
vince,  so  peculiarly  and  justly  their  own,  they  have  laboured 
with  an  ardour  which  no  difficulties  could  cool,  no  opposition 
extinguish.  I  claim  to  be  an  humble  advocate  of  African 
rights,  and  a  determined  enemy  to  African  oppression.  I 
would  place  them  where  their  personal  merits  would  entitle 
them  to  stand,  maugre  all  the  baneful  prejudices  which  their 
distinctive  condition  has  fomented.  But  do  the  laws  of 
Pennsylvania  deny  to  them  any  civil  or  political  privilege? 
Do  they  invidiously  point  out  and  distinguish  the  freeman, 
because  he  wears  a  dark  complexion, 

"  The  shadow'd  livery  of  the  burnish'd  sun  ?" 

The  freeman  of  colour  is  here  constituted  a  free  citizen, 
with  all  the  incidents  of  absolute  denization.  But  though 
in  possession  of  all  the  freedom  which  laws  can  confer, 
and  aided  by  a  society  who  have  taught  him  the  use  of 
letters  and  the  obligations  of  moral  and  religious  duty, 
he  is  yet  very  low  in  the  scale  of  moral  virtue.  In  elu 
cidation  of  this,  a  reference  to  the  statistics  of  our  prisons 
and  penitentiaries  is  all  that  is  requisite.  In  the  year 
1827,  when  the  white  population  of  Pennsylvania  amounted 
to  one  million  two  hundred  thousand,  and  the  black 
only  to  thirty  thousand  souls,  the  criminals  confined  at 
the  penitentiary  at  Philadelphia,  consisted  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty-one  blacks,  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-three 
whites.  According  to  the  census  of  1830,  the  population 
of  Pennsylvania  was  one  million  three  hundred  and  forty- 


15 

seven  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy-two  persons,  of 
which  number  there  were  thirty-seven  thousand  nine  hun 
dred  and  ninety  free  coloured  inhabitants.  The  number 
of  prisoners  in  the  three  penitentiaries  of  the  state,  at  the 
end  of  that  year,  was  five  hundred  and  ninety-eight,  of 
which  two  hundred  and  fifty-three  were  blacks.  If  the  con* 
Victions  among  the  white  population  were  in  the  same  pro 
portion  with  the  black,  instead  of  there  being  three  hun 
dred  and  forty-five  convicts  in  the  different  penitentiaries 
of  the  state,  an  immense  and  overwhelming  multitude 
would  present  of  between  eight  and  nine  thousand! 
Nor  is  there  in  the  magnitude  of  the  crimes  committed,  a 
perceptible  difference.  Among  those  offences  which  are 
supposed  to  exhibit  the  highest  degree  of  moral  turpitude, 
such  as  larceny,  robbery,  burglary,  and  arson,  the  relative 
proportion  of  whites  and  blacks  seems  to  be  nearly  equal. 
It  has  sometimes  been  argued,  in  explanation  of  so  lament 
able  a  disparity,  that  the  conviction  of  a  coloured  man  is 
procured  with  more  facility  than  that  of  a  white.  All  expe 
rience  of  our  criminal  courts  rejects  the  imputation  as  un 
founded.  It  affects  too  deeply  the  integrity  and  justice  of 
our  judicial  tribunals,  to  be  countenanced  or  discussed  with 
out  adequate  and  particular  proof.  No ;  the  fact  cannot  be 
reasoned  against,  explained,  or  impaired,  and  however  reluc 
tant  we  may  feel  to  admit  the  moral  inferiority  of  the  black 
man  in  Pennsylvania,  the  conclusion  is  altogether  irresistible.* 
Though  the  statistics  of  our  prisons  show  the  black  citizen 


*  Heber  tell  us  that  the  prisons  of  Moscow  and  other  places  in  Russia,  were 
chiefly  filled  with  slaves,  most  of  whom  were  in  irons.  The  convictions  of 
slaves  in  the  slave-holding  states  of  this  union,  show  the  most  deplorable  dis 
proportion  to  those  of  the  whites.  Travellers  find  the  prisons  crowded  with 
slaves. 

For  the  purpose  of  contemplating  the  same  men  under  more  favour- 
able  circumstances,  we  must  consider  them,  not  in  the  free  state  of  Penn 
sylvania,  for  as  I  have  demonstrated  in  the  text,  mere  legal  freedom  confers  no 
exemption  from  crime,  but  in  Liberia.  Governor  Mechlin  says :  "  As  to  the 
morals  of  the  colonists,  (of  Liberia)  I  consider  them  much  better  than  those 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States;  that  is,  you  may  take  an  equal  number  of 
the  inhabitants  from  any  section  of  the  Union,  and  you  will  find  more  drunk- 


16 

to  be  more  depraved  than  the  white,  it  must  not  be  forgot 
ten,  that  reasons  can  be  assigned  for  it,  without  alleging  the 
existence  of  ingenerate  evil  beyond  the  common  lot  of 
humanity.  All  philosophy  proves,  that  man  must  be  incited 
to  virtue  and  to  greatness,  by  the  impulses  of  honourable 
ambition  and  the  hopes  of  reward.  We  find  men  starting 
from  the  sinks  of  vice  and  the  obscurity  of  indigence,  and 
winning  their  way  to  wealth,  honour  and  distinction,  amid  a 
thousand  obstacles,  and  a  thousand  obstructions.  Even  the 
dignity  of  patrician  rank,  in  England,  intrenched  as  it  is 
behind  inveterate  customs,  and  all  the  outposts  of  princely 
wealth,  has  been  invaded  by  the  daring  encroachments  of  ple 
beian  merit.  But  however  elevated  the  natural  spirit,  it  will 

ards,  more  profane  swearers  and  Sabbath-breakers,  &c.,  than  in  Liberia. 
You  rarely  hear  an  oath,  and  as  to  riots  and  breaches  of  the  peace,  I  recollect 
of  but  one  instance,  and  that  of  a  trifling  nature,  that  has  come  under  my 
notice  since  I  assumed  the  government  of  the  colony."  Capt.  Sherman  says, 
"  There  is  a  greater  proportion  of  moral  and  religious  characters  in  Monrovia 
than  in  this  city,"  (Philadelphia.)  Capt.  Abels,  who  spent  thirteen  days  in 
the  settlement,  in  the  early  part  of  1832,  thus  attests  the  moral  condition  of 
the  colony ;  "  I  saw  no  intemperance,  nor  did  I  hear  a  profane  word  uttered 
by  any  one.  Being  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  on  Christmas-day  I  preached 
both  in  the  Methodist  and  Baptist  Church,  to  full  and  attentive  congregations, 
of  from  three  to  four  hundred  persons  in  each.  I  know  of  no  place  where 
the  Sabbath  appears  to  be  more  respected  than  in  Monrovia."  The  following 
testimony  is  borne  by  Simpson  and  Moore,  who  visited  the  colony  together. 
"  We  noticed,  particularly,  the  moral  state  of  things,  and  during  our  visit,  saw 
but  one  man  who  appeared  to  be  intemperate,  and  but  two  who  used  any  pro 
fane  language.  We  think  the  settlers  more  moral,  as  a  people,  than  the  citi 
zens  of  the  United  States."  It  is  to  be  wished,  that  we  had  more  recent  in 
formation  of  the  state  of  the  criminal  calendar.  Capt.  Sherman,  who  was  in 
Liberia  in  1830,  furnishes  the  latest  news  upon  this  subject.  It  is,  however, 
all  that  the  most  sanguine  mind  could  anticipate.  That  gentleman  says,  "  To 
the  honour  of  the  emigrants,  be  it  mentioned,  that  but  Jive  of  their  number 
have  been  committed  for  stealing  or  misdemeanour,  since  1827."  During 
these  three  years,  which  produced  but  five  convictions  '  for  stealing  or  mis 
demeanour,'  the  population  of  the  emigrants  averaged  one  thousand  five  hun 
dred  souls.  Now,  if  the  moral  character  of  the  colonists  of  Liberia,  were  not 
better  than  that  of  the  free  blacks  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  year  1830,  instead 
of  Jive  convictions,  there  would  have  been  sextuple  that  amount;  that  is  to 
say,  if  the  convictions  in  Liberia  were  in  the  same  proportion  to  the  popula 
tion,  as  among  the  free  blacks  of  Pennsylvania,  instead  of  Jive^  there  would 
have  been  thirty  convictions  in  those  three  years ! 


17 

remain  tame  or  torpid  without  some  stirring  incentive,  some 
powerful  stimulus  to  action.  When  intellectual  superiority 
or  moral  virtue  is  held  in  estimation,  when  its  possessor 
is  admired  and  venerated,  we  find  numerous  candidates  for 
the  honours  attendant  upon  its  acquisition.  Why  is  all 
this?  Because,  in  the  absence  of  legal  impediment,  humble 
merit  is  sure  of  success,  if  it  be  seconded  by  the  feelings 
and  sympathies  of  the  people.  But  can  the  aspirations  of 
the  negro  in  this  country  be  awakened  by  a  similar  hope? 
He  feels  himself  the  descendant  of  a  slave,  and  essentially 
distinguished  from  the  mass  around  him.  He  sees  the 
European  foreigner,  however  differing  from  us  in  language 
and  habits,  possess  every  exterior  resemblance,  and  give  to 
his  posterity  the  characteristics  of  the  nation  he  has  adopted. 
He  sees  his  own  offspring  but  the  counterpart  of  himself, 
and  they  likely  to  transmit  their  inheritance  to  their  suc 
cessors  from  generation  to  generation.  He  sees  that  a  re 
pugnance  arising  from  his  ancestry  and  complexion,  pre 
vents  him  from  enjoying  those  rights  which  the  laws 
accord  to  him.  He  feels,  that  though  benevolent  solicitude 
for  his  caste  has  been  alert  for  nearly  a  century,  yet  the 
mere  privilege  of  voting — that  franchise,  without  which, 
liberty  is  but  an  empty  name,  is  denied  him  at  the  peril  of 
his  life.  He  feels  that  social  communion  with  the  white 
man,  upon  equal  terms,  is  a  franchise  more  difficult  to  pur 
chase  than  that  of  suffrage  to  exercise.  He  feels  that  the 
very  kindness  which  he  experiences,  is  a  kind  of  abstract, 
short-lived  sympathy,  at  a  distance,  rather  than  prompted  by 
the  admission  of  undisputed  equality,  or  the  desire  of  nearer 
approach.  Thus  seeing  and  thus  reasoning,  is  it  surprising 
that  his  moral  and  intellectual  nature  has  not  yielded  to  long- 
continued  and  sedulous  care  ?  Promising  himself  little 
from  the  pursuits  of  industry,  or  the  practice  of  virtue, 
save  the  gratifications  of  animal  existence,  and  the  peace 
ful  consciousness  of  acting  well,  he  gives  up  both  in  despair. 
In  such  a  state  of  things  it  has  been  suggested,  that 
it  is  the  part  of  Christian  philanthropy  to  break  down 
the  idle  prejudices  of  lineage  and  colour  by  offering  to 
3 


18 

the  coloured  man  the  refinements  of  society,  and  to  admit 
him  to  full  participation  in  the  endearments  of  social  in 
tercourse.  Let  those  who  inculcate  these  doctrines  set  be 
fore  us  the  spectacle  of  their  own  bright  example.  Let  them, 
if  they  can,  thus  violate  all  the  sanctities  of  feeling,  all  the 
heart  felt  charities  of  private  life;  let  them,  if  they  can,  upon 
Christian  principles,  make  the  invidious  distinction  between 
the  negro  and  his  own  correspondent  class  among  the  whites. 
An  exaltation  of  the  negro  above  the  head  of  his  white  com 
peer,  would  be  unavoidably  attended  with  a  twofold  impro 
priety  and  absurdity.  The  exclusion  of  the  latter  of  equal 
deserts  is  indefensible,  invidious  and  unjust,  while  the  ad 
mission  of  the  former,  places  him  in  a  station  for  which  he  is 
unfit,  and  by  which  he  is  incapable  of  deriving  advantage. 
A  forced  and  unnatural  union,  repugnant  alike  to  reason  and 
to  feeling,  must  ever  be  the  parent  of  infelicity.  But  the 
projectors  of  amalgamation  not  having  reached  that  point  of 
moral  sublimity  which  can  overlook  these  various  objec 
tions,  it  may  be  considered  as  a  question  broached,  rather  as  a 
metaphysical  abstraction,  than  with  the  hope,  desire,  or  ex 
pectation  of  ever  seeing  it  reduced  to  practice.  As  the  negro, 
in  this  country,  is  from  the  causes  adverted  to,  curtailed  of 
his  moral  and  mental  proportions,  it  seems  rather  the  dictate 
of  enlightened  benevolence  to  frame  plans  for  his  ulterior 
improvement  and  practical  melioration,  than  to  seek  to  render 
him  odious  by  a  premature,  an  indiscreet,  and  unnatural  ele 
vation. 

Such  being  the  results  of  long  continued  and  strenuous  ef 
forts  at  abolition,  and  such  the  condition  and  prospects  of  the 
free  coloured  population,  it  seemed  to  be  desirable,  that  a 
new  essay  should  be  made,  offering  more  hopeful  expectations 
of  success.  It  was  seen  that  little  had  been  done  at  the 
North,  and  that  the  great  work  of  Southern  Abolition  could 
not  be  advanced  by  companies  in  the  free  states.  It  was 
seen  that  statutory  disability  existed  to  prevent  private  en 
franchisements,  unless  accompanied  by  removal  from  the 
slave  holding  territory.  It  was  seen  that  the  free  negroes  of 
the  United  States,  stinted  and  restrained  in  regard  to  the  finer 


19 

properties  and  higher  attributes  which  characterise  humanity 
in  positions  favourable  to  its  growth  and  cultivation,  were 
abridged  of  those  common  enjoyments  which  usually  fall  to 
the  lot  of  man  in  a  free  country.  It  was  under  these  circum 
stances,  and  with  these  impressions,  that  the  Colonization  So 
ciety  grew  into  being.  Though  commenced  in  the  North,  it  met 
with  approbation  in  the  South,  and  from  the  era  of  its  estab 
lishment  to  the  present  time,  both  the  North  and  the  South 
have  harmoniously  united  in  the  projects  of  an  enterprise  so 
transcendently  good  and  glorious.  The  simple  scheme  of  re 
moving  to  Africa  all  who  should  consent  to  emigrate,  would, 
it  was  honestly  believed,  promote  the  ultimate  hopes  of  the 
Abolition  Societies.  Let  these  institutions,  by  mental  and 
moral  culture,  prepare  the  negro  for  self-government  in  his 
father-land.  Let  them  unfold  to  the  free  blacks  the  advan 
tages  which  are  likely  to  accrue  to  themselves,  their  brethren, 
and  posterity,  from  erecting  free  governments  in  Africa. 
Let  them  paint  to  their  imaginations,  with  pencils  glowing 
with  the  greatness  of  the  truth,  the  enjoyments  of  unrestrain 
ed  liberty  and  perfect  equality,  in  a  region  designed  by 
nature,  both  in  its  climate  and  productions,  for  their  exclu 
sive  possession.*  Let  them  awaken  their  ambition  as  the 

*  There  seems  to  be  a  peculiar  fitness  in  placing  the  negro  in  Africa,  when 
it  -is  recollected  that  large  portions  of  its  immense  tracts  are  suited  only  to  his 
constitution.  The  white  man  will  languish  and  die  beneath  a  sun  which  is  con 
genial  to  the  animal  nature  of  the  black  man.  Nature  herself,  therefore,  would 
seem  to  concur  with  this  philanthropy,  unless  it  be  thought  that  she  designed 
those  regions,  which  are  so  well  calculated  for  the  residence  of  the  latter,  and 
for  him  only,  to  lie  waste  and  uninhabited.  Capt.  Nicholson,  of  the  U.  S.  Navy, 
says  of  Liberia,  which  he  visited  in  1828,  "  It  was,  I  believe,  never  intended 
that  the  white  man  should  inhabit  this  region  of  the  globe  :  at  least,  we  know 
that  the  diseases  of  this  climate  are  more  fatal  to  him  than  to  the  man  of 
colour.  They  luxuriate  in  the  intense  heat,  while  a  white  man  sinks  under 
its  exhausting  influence."  I  cannot  forbear  from  quoting,  in  confirmation  of 
these  views,  some  judicious  remarks  of  a  learned  writer  in  a  late  number  of 
the  Phrenological  Journal  of  Edinburgh.  "  If  we  look,"  says  he,  "  to  that  well 
marked  and  vast  peninsula  called  Africa,  we  find  that  equally  marked  race, 
the  negro,  with  slight  modifications,  forming  its  native  population  throughout 
all  its  regions.  We  find  the  temperature  of  his  blood,  the  chemical  action  of 
his  skin,  the  very  texture  of  his  wool-like  hair,  all  fitting  him  for  the  vertical 
sun  of  Africa;  and  if  ever}'  surviving  African  of  the  present  day,  who  is  living- 


20 

founders  of  a  future  commonwealth,  to  be  virtuous  and  en 
lightened,  rich  in  the  ownership  of  multiplied  blessings,  and 
widely  diffusive  in  the  effects  of  example  and  influence.  If 
they  do  this,  we  shall  find  the  American  negro,  now  dwin 
dled  in  his  morals  and  intellect,  developing  those  latent  capa 
cities  and  inborn  energies,  which,  though  oppression  might 
check  or  conceal,  it  could  not  uproot  and  destroy.  We  shall 
find  him  planting  a  tree  in  the  midst  of  a  howling  desert, 
bearing  the  rich  fruits  of  religion,  civilization,  and  liberty, 
and  inviting  to  the  covert  of  its  thick  spreading  branches  and 
clustering  foliage,  the  people  of  a  continent  which  has  lain 
so  long  exposed,  uncovered,  defenceless,  and  oppressed. 

The  direct  and  incidental  effects  of  Colonization  are  very 
large  and  expansive.  They  are  not  limited  to  a  qualified 
benefit  resulting  to  the  free  blacks  only,  at  the  expense  of 
injury  to  the  slave,  but  comprehend  in  their  wide  range  the 
cause  of  abolition,  the  absolute  disenthraling  of  the  man  of 
colour,  the  extinction  of  the  slave  trade,  and  the  civilization 
of  Africa.  For  the  accomplishment  of  these  great  purposes, 
an  extensive  region  of  sea-coast  has  been  selected  on  the 
western  side  of  the  African  continent,  stretching  two  hun 
dred  and  eighty  miles  from  the  river  Gallinas  on  the  north, 
to  the  territory  of  Kroo  Settra  on  the  south.  Being  intended 
for  the  abode  of  freemen,  this  extensive  domain  bears  the 
appropriate  title,  Liberia.  The  actual  jurisdiction  of  the 
Colony,  at  present,  extends  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from 
Cape  Mount  to  Trade  Town.  Between  these  points  is  beau 
tifully  situated,  at  Bassa  Cove,  the  locality  of  the  Pennsyl- 
van  Colony.  A  few  leagues  beyond  the  northern  limits  of 

in  degradation  and  destitution  in  other  lands,  for  which  Tie  was  never  intended, 
were  actually  restored  to  the  peculiar  land  of  his  peculiar  race,  in  independence 
and  comfort,  would  any  man  venture  to  affirm,  that  Christianity  had  been  lost 
sight  of  by  all  who  had  in  any  way  contributed  to  such  a  consummation  ?  It 
matters  not  to  brotherly  love  on  which  side  of  the  Atlantic  the  negro  is  made 
enlightened,  virtuous,  and  happy,  if  he  is  actually  so  far  blessed;  but  it  does 
matter  on  which  side  of  the  ocean  you  place  him,  when  there  is  only  one  where 
he  will  be  as  happy  and  respectable  as  benevolence  would  wish  to  see  him, 
and  certainly  there,  a  rightly  applied  morality  and  religion  would  sanction  his 
being  placed." 


21 

Liberia,  stretches  the  more  ancient  settlement  of  Sierra 
Leone,  and  at  its  southern  extremity  stands  the  flourishing 
little  establishment  at  Cape  Palmas.  A  glance  at  the  map  of 
Africa,  discovers  a  continuous  line  of  sea-coast  from  the 
north-west  to  the  south-east  of  five  hundred  miles,  which  is 
now  dotted  by  prosperous  and  Christian  communities.  These 
are  the  green  spots  which  the  plastic  hand  of  Colonization 
has  formed  out  of  a  trackless  region  of  boundless  wilderness. 
The  selection  made,  it  is  supposed,  embraces  more  advantages 
of  fertility,  site,  salubrity,  and  commerce,  than  any  other 
which  the  extensive  western  coast  of  Africa  affords. 

The  first  settlement  at  Liberia  was  in  the  year  1822.  It 
now  includes  about  ten  thousand  citizens  who  have  submitted 
to  regular  government.  Of  these  several  thousands  belong  to 
the  native  tribes  who  have  voluntarily  placed  themselves 
under  its  protection;  many  hundred  are  recaptured  Africans; 
and  the  remainder  are  emigrants  from  this  country.  Here 
is  the  germ  of  a  powerful  and  independent  commonwealth, 
destined,  perhaps,  to  carry  into  the  heart,  and  to  the  remote 
extremities  of  Africa,  our  religion,  laws,  civilization,  and 
language. 

The  fierceness  of  opposition,  and  the  easiness  of  popular 
credulity,  have  combined  in  casting  the  most  cruel  aspersions 
upon  the  condition  and  prospects  of  Liberia.  The  mistakes 
of  agents  and  the  temporary  miscarriage  of  favourite  plans, 
have  been  magnified  into  events  of  vital  and  insuperable  con 
sequence.  Its  existing  state  has  been  represented  to  ad 
venturers  as  supremely  unhappy,  and  the  country,  in  point  of 
climate,  as  a  yawning  tomb.  The  least  examination  will 
show  that  these  assertions  are  without  adequate  basis,  and 
that  the  colony,  both  in  climate  and  the  prosperous  condition 
of  its  inhabitants,  presents  the  most  flattering  inducements  to 
emigrants. — All  new  countries  in  a  course  of  improve 
ment,  are  liable  to  the  visitation  of  febrile  distempers.  The 
decomposition  of  that  decaying  vegetable  matter  which  their 
falling  forests  constantly  supply,  must  furnish  nutriment  to 
disease.  Change  of  residence  from  a  temperate  to  a  tro 
pical  climate,  must  likewise  impart  an  injurious  influ- 


22 

ence.  In  Liberia,  these  causes  concur  and  are  in  full 
operation,  without  giving  rise  to  greater  mortality  than 
happens  in  the  most  salutary  districts  of  our  western  coun 
try.*  Better  evidence  need  not  be  adduced  of  the  salu- 


*  The  truth  of  the  declaration  in  the  text,  can  be  well  established  by  cita 
tions  from  the  reports  of  the  agents  of  the  parent  Society,  and  the  writings  of 
respectable  and  disinterested  visitors.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  a  few  quota 
tions.  In  February,  1828,  Dr.  Mechlin  writes,  "  This  month,  although  called 
by  those  resident  here,  the  sickly  season,  has  not,  to  judge  from  the  few  cases 
of  illness  that  have  come  under  my  notice,  merited  that  appellation.  Indeed, 
I  do  not  know  any  part  of  the  United  States  where  the  proportion  of  the  sick  is 
not  fully  as  great  as  here,  and  the  cases  of  a  refractory  nature  are  almost  all 
yielding  to  medicine."  In  April,  the  same  gentleman,  referring  to  the  newly 
arrived  emigrants,  says,  "  I  never  saw  any  fever  in  the  United  States  yield 
more  readily  to  medicine  than  the  country  fever,  among  the  emigrants,  at  this 
season."  In  August,  he  writes,  "  that  only  four  or  five  cases  of  sickness  exist, 
and  that  at  no  time  had  health  been  more  generally  enjoyed."  In  December, 
Dr.  Randall  writes  thus  :  "  The  climate,  during  this  month,  is  most  delightful. 
Though  this  is  regarded  as  the  sickly  season,  we  have  but  little  disease,  and 
none  of  an  alarming  character."  During  this  period,  when,  according  to 
Mechlin,  only  four  or  Jive  cases  of  sickness  existed,  the  population  of  the  emi 
grants  was  about  twelve  hundred  persons.  In  the  circular  Address  of  the  Colo 
nists  to  the  Free  People  of  Colour  of  the  United  States,  published  about  the  same 
time  with  these  testimoniesof  the  physicians  of  theColony,we  find  this  candid  and 
intelligent  representation  of  their  experience  and  prospects  in  regard  to  health. 
*'  We  enjoy  health,  after  a  few  month's  residence  in  the  country,  as  uniformly 
and  in  as  perfect  a  degree,  as  we  possessed  that  blessing  in  our  native  country. 
And  a  distressing  scarcity  of  provisions,  or  any  of  the  comforts  of  life,  has  for 
the  last  two  years  been  entirely  unknown,  even  to  the  poorest  persons  in  this 
community.  On  these  points  there  are,  and  have  been,  much  misconception, 
and  some  malicious  misrepresentation  in  the  United  States. 
Several  out  of  every  ship's  company  have,  within  the  last  four  years,  been 
carried  off  by  sickness,  caused  by  the  change  of  climate.  And  death  occa 
sionally  takes  a  victim  from  our  number,  without  any  regard  at  all  to  the  time 
of  his  residence  in  this  country.  But  we  never  hoped,  by  leaving  America,  to 
escape  the  common  lot  of  mortals — the  necessity  of  death,  to  which  the  just 
•appointment  of  heaven  consigns  us.  But  we  do  expect  to  live  as  long,  and  pass 
this  life  uiitli  as  little  sickness  as  yourselves. 

"  The  true  character  of  the  African  climate  is  not  well  understood  in  other 
countries.  Its  inhabitants  are  as  robust,  as  healthy,  as  long-lived,  to  say  the 
least,  as  those  of  any  other  country.  Nothing  like  an  epidemic  has  ever  ap 
peared  in  this  Colony  ;  nor  can  we  learn  from  the  natives,  that  the  calamity 
of  a  sweeping  sickness  ever  yet  visited  this  part  of  the  continent.  But  the 
change  from  a  temperate  to  a  tropical  country  is  a  great  one — too  great  not  to 


23 

brity  of  the  climate,  than  the  fact,  that  the  black  inhabitants 
of  the  Southern  states  are  scarcely  sensible  of  change.  They 
seldom  contract  the  fever  to  which  emigrants  from  the 
Northern  latitudes  are  frequently  subject.  Misgivings  of  the 

affect  the  health,  more  or  less — and,  in  the  case  of  old  people,  and  very  young 
children,  it  often  causes  death.  In  the  early  years  of  the  Colony,  want  of  good 
houses,  the  great  fatigues  and  dangers  of  the  settlers,  their  irregular  mode  of 
living,  and  the  hardships  and  discouragements  they  met  with,  greatly  helped 
the  other  causes  of  sickness.  *  But  we  look  back  to  those  times 

as  to  a  season  of  trial  long  past,  and  nearly  forgotten.  Our  houses  and  cir 
cumstances  are  now  comfortable  ;  and  for  the  last  two  or  three  years,  not  one 
person  in  forty,  from  the  middle  and  southern  Slates,  has  died  from  the  change 
of  climate." 

Capt.  Nicholson,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  who  had  visited  Liberia  on  his 
return  from  a  cruise  in  the  Mediterranean,  thus  writes  to  Henry  Clay,  under 
date  of  the  17th  March,  1828: 

"  The  population  is  now  twelve  hundred,  and  is  healthy  and  thriving.  The 
children  born  in  the  country  are  fine  looking,  and  I  presume  can  be  raised  as 
easily  as  those  of  the  natives.  All  the  colonists  with  whom  I  had  any  commu 
nication,  (and  with  nearly  the  whole  I  did  communicate  in  person,  or  by  my 
officers,)  expressed  their  decided  wish  to  remain  in  their  present  situation, 
rather  than  to  return  again  to  the  United  States." 

Capt.  Sherman,  who,  in  the  year  1830,  conducted  to  Liberia  fifty-eight 
emigrants  from  this  country,  and  who  was  there  for  three  weeks,  in  the  month 
of  March,  thus  speaks  his  honest  impressions  : 

*'  It  has  been  objected  that  the  climate  is  very  unhealthy — this  is  true  as 
respects  the  whites,  but  erroneous  as  respects  the  coloured  people.  Those 
from  the  middle  and  northern  States  have  to  undergo  what  is  called  a  season 
ing—that  is,  they  generally  take  the  fever  the  first  month  of  their  residence, 
but  it  has  rarely  proved  fatal,  since  accommodations  have  been  prepared  for 
their  reception ;  those  from  Georgia,  the  Carolinas,  and  the  southern  parts  of 
Virginia,  either  escape  the  fever  altogether,  or  have  it  very  slightly.  Deaths 
occur  there,  indeed,  as  in  other  places,  but  Doctor  Mechlin,  the  agent,  assured 
me  that  the  bills  of  mortality  would  show  a  less  proportion  of  deaths,  than  those 
of  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  or  New  York" 

Simpson  and  Moore,  two  intelligent  and  respectable  coloured  men,  visited 
the  different  settlements  in  the  summer  of  1832,  and  report  their  sense  of  the 
health  of  the  country  as  follows  :  "  Wherever  we  went,  the  people  appeared  to 
enj°y  good  health ;  and  a  more  healthy  looking  people,  particularly  the  chil 
dren,  we  have  not  seen  in  the  United  States.  *  *  *  Our  own 
health,  while  in  the  Colony,  was  perfectly  good,  although  we  were  much  ex- 
posed  to  the  night  air."  (Vide  Dr.  Hodgkin's  remarks  on  the  value  and  respec 
tability  of  this  evidence,  in  his  inquiry  into  the  merits  of  the  American  Coloni 
zation  Society,  &c.  p.  33.)  Without  multiplying  extracts,  which,  from  a  variety 
of  sources,  and  of  similar  import,  might  be  greatly  increased,  I  will  add  the 


24 

climate  must  be  removed  by  adverting  to  the  sound  constitu 
tions  of  the  native  inhabitants.  They  survive  to  an  age  be 
yond  the  prescribed  limit  of '  three  score  and  ten,'  and  carry 
with  them  through  life,  in  strength  of  limb  and  rotundity  of 
form,  abundant  proof  of  the  excellence  of  their  native  air. 
The  original  emigrants  to  Liberia  were  not  exempt  from 
those  hardships  and  privations  to  which  first  settlers  are  ne 
cessarily  exposed.  Unacquainted  with  the  dispositions  of  the 
people,  and  ignorant  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  soil,  their  sub 
sistence  was  precarious  and  slender.  Care,  privation,  and 
disease  brought  some  to  a  premature  grave.*  But  the  diffi- 


conclusion  to  which  Dr.  Hodgkin,  the  amiable  and  excellent  writer  just  quoted, 
came,  in  the  year  1833,  after  an  attentive  examination  of  all  the  documents 
connected  with  the  subject.  As  a  foreign  writer,  and  a  man  of  the  most  bene 
volent  and  praiseworthy  character,  his  impressions,  derived  from  a  perusal  of 
the  whole  testimony,  are  of  intrinsic  value.  He  says  in  his  Inquiry,  p.  35, 
"  According  to  the  official  statements  respecting  the  health  of  the  colonists  at 
Liberia,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  mortality,  notwithstanding  the  influx  of 
new  settlers — who  would  have  a  kind  of  seasoning  to  undergo,  whatever 
might  have  been  the  situation  to  which  they  had  removed — has  much,  if  at  all, 
exceeded  the  mortality  in  the  United  States."  From  these  representations, 
can  it  be  doubted,  that  when  the  colonists  shall  have  turned  their  attention 
more  to  agriculture  than  trade — when  the  forests  shall  have  been  prostrated, 
the  population  increased,  and  its  comforts  augmented — we  shall  hear  little  com 
plaint  against  Liberia  on  the  score  of  climate  1 

*  Sierra  Leone,  which,  notwithstanding  the  disregard  it  has  experienced  of 
late  years,  has  done  so  much  for  the  surrounding  tribes  of  barbarians,  and 
towards  the  destruction  of  the  slave-trade  in  that  part  of  Africa,  showed,  in  its 
early  history,  a  mortality  alarming  in  the  extreme.  If  the  tithe  could  be  rea 
sonably  alleged  of  Liberia,  which  is  truly  related  of  Sierra  Leone,  the  enterprise 
would  long  since  have  been  abandoned.  The  obstacles  which  the  English 
Company  encountered  and  subdued,  would  have  appalled  and  disheartened 
Americans.  Adam  Hodgson,  in  the  appendix  to  his  letter  to  M.  Jean  Baptiste 
Say,  on  the  comparative  expense  of  free  and  slave  labour,  published  in  1823, 
gives  the  following  melancholy  account  of  the  misfortunes  to  which  the  first 
colonists  at  Sierra  Leone  were  subjected  :  "  This  colony  (Sierra  Leone,)  may 
be  said  to  owe  its  origin  to  the  liberality  and  benevolent  exertions  of  the  cele 
brated  Granmlle  Sharp.  At  the  time  when  the  decision  of  Lord  Mansfield,  in 
the  memorable  case  of  the  negro  Somerset,  had  established  the  axiom,  that 
"  as  soon  as  any  slave  sets  his  foot  on  English  ground,  he  becomes  free," 
there  were  many  negroes  in  London  who  had  been  brought  over  by  their  mas. 
ters.  As  a  large  proportion  of  these  had  no  longer  owners  to  support  them, 
nor  any  parish  from  which  they  could  claim  relief,  they  fell  into  great  distress, 


25 

culties  which  Liberia  has  encountered,  are  those  only  of  all 
colonial  settlements.  Their  early  history  presents  an  uniform 
aspect,  one  unvarying  page  ;  it  is  marked  by  discouragement 
and  disaster,  by  disappointment  and  mortality.  The  parent 
and  nurse  of  all  the  Spanish  establishments  in  America, 
proved  a  certain  burying-place  to  most  of  the  primitive 
adventurers.  Of  the  thirty-eight  persons  left  in  Hispaniola, 
by  Columbus,  as  the  seed  of  a  colony,  all  had  perished  in  ten 
months  after,  on  his  return  from  Spain.  The  armament 
which  Ovando  conducted  thither  in  1502,  carried  two  thou 
sand  five  hundred  colonists.  One  thousand  of  these  fell  vic 
tims  to  disease.  Notwithstanding  these  sad  indications  of  a 
fatal  temperature,  and  the  mortality  which,  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  last  and  beginning  of  the  present  century,  thinned  the 
ranks  of  the  French  and  English  armies  which  successively 
invaded  that  island,  yet  all  recent  voyagers  agree,  that  to  the 
coloured  inhabitants,  who  are  now  its  undisputed  possessors, 
the  climate  is  propitious  and  healthful.  Of  the  colonists  con 
ducted  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  to  the  coast,  now  forming  a 


and  resorted  in  crowds  to  their  patron,  Granville  Sharp,  for  support.  *  * 
He  determined  upon  sending  them  to  some  spot  in  Africa,  the  general  land  of 
their  ancestors,  where,  when  they  were  once  landed  under  a  proper  leader,  and 
with  proper  provisions  for  a  time,  and  proper  implements  of  husbandry,  they 
might,  with  but  moderate  industry,  provide  for  themselves.  *  *  * 
Nothing  could  be  more  discouraging  than  the  calamities  which  befell  the  un 
dertaking  from  its  very  outset.  Of  four  hundred  black  people  who  left  the 
Thames  on  the  22d  February,  1787,  under  convoy  of  His  Majesty's  sloop  of 
war  Nautilus,  not  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty,  (who  were  afterwards 
reduced  to  forty,*)  remained  alive  at,  and  in  one  body,  at  the  end  of  the  rainy 
season,  into  which  they  had  been  thrown  by  the  death  of  Mr.  Smeathman, 
notwithstanding  Mr.  Sharp's  strenuous  efforts  to  avoid  iti  Disaster  followed 
disaster.  Famine,  disease,  discontent,  desertion,  succeeded  each  other  with 
frightful  rapidity,  till  the  year  1789,  when  the  Colony,  again  in  a  state  of  im 
provement,  was  almost  annihilated  by  a  hostile  attack  from  a  neighbouring 
chief."  These  calamities  have  long  since  ceased,  and  no  objection  is  now 
heard  to  the  climate  of  Sierra  Leone,  in  its  influence  upon  the  coloured  popula 
tion,  and  no  fears  entertained  of  the  natives  or  of  famine.  The  neglect  which 
it  has  suffered,  has  prevented  it  from  realizing  all  that  might  be  expected  from 
it.  It  has  rendered  the  colonists  happy,  and  greatly  suppressed  the  slave-trade. 
4 


26 

constituent  part  of  North  Carolina,  and  of  others  who  subse 
quently  followed,  not  one  survived  to  tell  the  story  of  their 
melancholy  fate.     The  settlement  at  James  Town,  in  1607, 
narrowly  escaped   a  similar  miscarriage.     One  half  of  the 
original  emigrants  were,  in  a  few  months,  swept  away  by 
famine  and  distemper.     Those  who  remained  thrice  formed 
the  resolution  of  abandoning  the  Colony  and  returning  to 
England.      Of  five  hundred  settlers  whom   the  chivalrous 
and  devoted  Smith  left  in  Virginia,  but  sixty  were  in  being 
a  few  months  after  ;  and  they,  enfeebled  by  famine,  and  de 
jected  by  various  misfortunes,  were  projecting  a  speedy  de 
parture  from  the  land  of  their  hardships  and  sufferings.    The 
Colony  at  New  Plymouth  experienced  like  embarrassments. 
In  six  months  after  the  landing  of  the  pilgrims,  owing  to  the 
unaccustomed  rigours  of  an  eastern  winter,  and  the  fatigues 
and  hardships  inseparable  from  a  new  settlement,  nearly  half 
of  the  adventurers  had  died.     A  great  pestilence,  they  were 
informed  by  the  Indian  Chief,  Samoset,  had  raged  four  years 
before,  and  swept  the  populous  region  of  Patuxet.     To  their 
other  calamities,  was  added  the  sterility  of  a  rocky  and  stub 
born  soil,  the  productions  of  which,  after  untiring  and  labo 
rious  cultivation,  were  always  uncertain.     The  distresses  of 
famine  threatened  them  at  every  step ;  they  subsisted  upon 
fish,  with  precarious  supplies  of  corn  and  beans,  procured 
from  the  Indians.      It  is  not  necessary  to  remind  Pennsyl- 
vanians  of  the  hardships  encountered  by  those  worthy  pio 
neers  of  the  wilderness,  who  landed  on  the  shores  of  the 
Delaware,  on  this  day  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  years  ago.    It 
is  not  necessary  to  recount  the  perplexities  and  trials  which 
their  situation  imposed — of  their  disappointment  and   con 
sternation  in  finding  caves  for  their  dwelling  places,  and 
impenetrable  tracts  of  forests  in  the  promised  land.     With 
such  examples,   and  other  lights  which  history  sheds,  let 
Liberia  be  viewed,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  less  hardship  and 
disaster,  less  mortality  and  discontent,  cannot  be  found  in 
any  settlement  which  the  long  narrative  of  colonial  annals 
records.  The  concurring  testimonies  of  Captain  Stockton  and 
Captain  Nicholson,  who  visited  Liberia  in  1828  ;  of  Captain 


27 

Sherman,  in  1830;  of  Captain  Kennedy  and  Captain  Abel, 
in  1831;  of  Hannah  Kilham,  in  1832;  and  of  Captain  Voor- 
hees,  towards  the  close  of  the  past  year,  establish,  beyond 
the  possibility  of  question,  its  striking  fitness  for  its  destined 
object.  In  confirmation  of  these  disinterested  and  respectable 
travellers,  are  the  reports  of  the  agents,  the  letters  of  the  colo 
nists,  and  the  evidence  of  British  and  French  naval  officers 
who  have  occasionally  visited  the  settlement.  They  unite  in 
repesenting  it  as  the  abode  of  peaceful  content  and  smiling 
plenty.  The  preposterous  and  unfounded  statements  of  one 
or  two  unknown  or  discredited  witnesses,  are  entitled  to  no 
respect  from  the  honest  inquirer.  Like  the  fabulous  stories 
circulated  against  colonial  Pennsylvania,  in  the  life-time  of 
the  Founder,  better  information  and  more  enlarged  expe 
rience  prove  their  folly  and  untruth.* 


*  The  unknown  witness  brought  forward  by  James  G.  Birney,  in  his  re- 
cent   letter   against  Colonization,  exceeds,  in   the  monstrosity  of  its  allega 
tions,  the  hardihood  of  all  his  predecessors.     Having  never  before  heard  of  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Jones,  thus  distinguished  in  the  letter,  I  know  him  only  by  the 
account  there  given,   that  '  he  is  a  coloured  man,  and  had  been  a  slave  in 
Kentucky,'  and  by  his  testimony  concerning  Liberia.     I  copy  the  whole  de 
scription,  to  enable  the  reader  to  see  how  ruthless  and  fierce  are  the  attacks 
upon  this  devoted  settlement.     "  On  the  fourth  day,  Mr.  King  (Agent  of  the 
Tennessee  Colonization  Society,)  suggested  that  we  ought  now  to  visit  the 
poor.     We  accordingly  did  so,  and  of  all  misery  and  poverty,  and  all  repining 
that  my  imagination  had  ever  conceived,  it  had  never  reached  what  my  eyes 
now  saw,  and  my  ears  heard.     Hundreds  of  poor  creatures,  squalid,  ragged, 
hungry,  without  employment — some  actually  starving  to  death,  and  all  praying 
most  fervently  that  they  might  get  home  to  America  once  more.     Even  the 
emancipated  slave  craved  the  boon  of  returning  again  to  bondage,  that  he 
might  once  more  have  the  pains  of  hunger  satisfied.     There  are  hundreds 
there  who  say  they  would  rather  come  back  and  be  slaves  than  stay  in  Liberia. 
They  would  sit  down  and  tell  us  their  tale  of  suffering  and  of  sorrow,  with 
such  a  dejected  and  wo-begone  aspect,  that  it  would  almost  break  our  hearts. 
They  would  weep  as  they  would  talk  of  their  sorrows  here,  and  their  joys  in 
America— and  we  mingled  our  tears  freely  with  theirs.     This  part  of  the  po 
pulation  included,  as  near  as  we  could  judge,  two-tMrds  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Monrovia."     Two-thirds  of  the  inhabitants  discontented,  and  hundreds  rather 
be  slaves  than  remain  in  Liberia !      Hundreds  hungry,  and  some  actually 
starving  to  death  >     Misery  beyond  what  the  imagination  can  conceive  the 
eyes  ever  saw,  or  the  ears  heard  !  The  surprise  is  not  that  a  spurious  bill  may 
get  into  circulation,  but  that  it  should  find  such  an  indoreer  as  James  G.  Bir- 


28 

Such  is  the  country  in  which  the  Colonization  Society  has 
invited  the  black  man  of  America  to  fix  his  permanent  habi 
tation.  It  offers  him,  '  without  money  and  without  price/  a 


ney.  This  account  is  opposed  by  the  letter  of  the  colonists  themselves,  and  the 
concurring  testimonies  of  the  most  respectable  travellers,  from  the  year  1828 
to  the  present  time.  The  letter  from  the  colonists  represents  the  face  of  the 
country  as  covered  with  perpetual  verdure,  and  that  the  soil  in  fertility  is  not 
surpassed  on  the  face  of  the  earth — that  the  colonists  are  blessed  with  plenty, 
and  enjoy  content — that  wages  are  high,  and  mechanics  of  nearly  every  trade 
are  sure  of  constant  and  profitable  employment.  They  say,  "  Truly  we  have 
a  goodly  heritage  ;  and  if  there  is  any  thing  lacking  in  the  character  or  con- 
dition  of  the  people  of  this  Colony,  it  never  can  be  charged  to  the  account  of 
the  country  :  it  must  be  the  fruit  of  our  own  mismanagement,  or  slothfulness 
or  vices."  (See  the  Circular  of  the  Colonists,  in  extenso,  in  Thirteenth  Annual 
Report  of  the  American  Society  for  colonizing  the  free  people  of  colour  of  the 
United  States,  p.  30,  et  seq.)  Capt.  Nicholson  thus  writes  in  1828 :  "  I  cannot 
give  you  better  evidence  of  the  prosperity  of  the  Colony,  than  by  mentioning 
that  eight  of  my  crew  (coloured  mechanics,)  after  going  on  shore  two  several 
days,  applied  for,  and  received  their  discharge,  in  order  to  remain  as  perma^ 
nent  settlers.  These  men  had  been  absent  from  their  country  upwards  of 
three  years,  and  had,  among  them,  nearly  two  thousand  dollars  in  clothes  and 
money.  Had  they  not  been  thoroughly  convinced  that  their  happiness  and 
prosperity  would  be  better  promoted  by  remaining  among  their  free  brethren 
in  Liberia,  they  would  not  have  determined  on  so  momentous  a  step  as  quit 
ting  the  United  States,  perhaps  forever,  where  they  all  had  left  friends  and 
relatives. 

-"The  appearance  of  all  the  colonists,  those  of  Monrovia,  as  well  as  those  of  Cald- 
well,  indicated  more  than  contentment.  Their  manners  were  those  of  freemen, 
who'  experienced  the  blessings  of  liberty,  and  appreciated  the  boon.  Many  of 
them  had,  by  trade,  accumulated  a  competency,  if  the  possession  of  from  three 
to  five  thousand  dollars  may  be  called  so." 

Capt.  Sherman,  whose  visit  was  in  the  year  1830,  thus  writes  of  the  comfort 
and  contentment  of  the  settlers  : 

"  Monrovia,  at  present,  consists  of  about  ninety  dwelling  houses  and  stores, 
two  houses  for  public  worship,  and  a  court  house.  Many  of  the  dwellings  are 
handsome  and  convenient,  and  all  of  them  comfortable.  The  plot  of  the  town 
is  cleared  more  than  a  mile  square,  elevated  about  seventy  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  and  contains  seven  hundred  inhabitants. 

"  The  township  of  Caldwell  is  about  seven  miles  from  Monrovia,  on  St. 
Paul's  river,  and  contains  a  population  of  five  hundred  and  sixty  agricultu 
ralists.  The  soil  is  exceedingly  fertile,  the  situation  pleasant,  and  the  people 
satisfied  and  happy.  The  emigrants  carried  out  by  me,  and  from  whom  I  re- 
ceived  a  pleasing  and  satisfactory  account  of  that  part  of  the  country,  are 
located  here." 

Capt.  Kennedy's  visit  was  in  1831.    He  thus  states  the  result  of  his  mquiri. 
and  observations :  "  I  sought  out  the  most  shrewd  and  intelligent  of  the  colo- 


29 

home  of  freedom  and  plenty  in  the  land  of  his  fathers.  It 
offers  him  a  sanctuary  from  wrong  and  persecution.  It 
offers  him  the  unwonted  prospect  of  an  unclouded  and  bril- 


nists,  many  of  whom  were  personally  known  to  me,  and  by  long  and  many 
conversations,  endeavoured  to  elicit  from  them  any  dissatisfaction  with  their 
condition,  (if  such  existed,)  or  any  latent  design  to  return  to  their  native  country. 
Neither  of  these  did  I  observe.  On  the  contrary,  I  thought  I  could  perceive 
that  they  considered  that  they  had  started  into  a  new  existence ;  that,  disen 
cumbered  of  the  mortifying  relations  in  which  they  formerly  stood  in  society, 
they  felt  themselves  proud  in  their  attitude,"  &c.  &c.  Fifteenth  Report,  1832. 

Capt.  Abel  gives  this  emphatic  testimony.  He  was  in  the  Colony  in  the 
latter  part  of  December,  1831.  "  All  my  expectations  in  regard  to  the  aspect 
of  things,  the  health,  harmony,  order,  contentment,  industry,  and  general  pros 
perity  of  the  settlers,  was  more  than  realized.  There  are  about  two  hundred 
buildings  in  the  town  of  Monrovia,  extending  along  the  Cape  Montserado,  not 
far  from  a  mile  and  a  quarter.  Most  of  these  are  good  substantial  houses  and 
stores,  the  first  story  of  many  of  them  being  of  stone;  and  some  of  them  hand 
some,  spacious,  and  with  Venitian  blinds.  Nothing  struck  me  as  more  re 
markable  than  the  great  superiority  in  intelligence,  manners,  conversation, 
dress,  and  general  appearance  in  every  respect  over  their  coloured  brethren  in 
America.  So  much  was  I  pleased  with  what  I  saw,  that  I  observed  to  the  peo 
ple,  '  Should  I  make  a  true  report,  it  would  hardly  be  credited  in  the  United 
States.'  Among  all  that  I  conversed  with,  I  did  not  Jind  a  discontented  per 
son,  or  hear  one  express  a  desire  to  return  to  America.  I  saw  no  intemperance, 
nor  did  I  hear  a  profane  word  uttered  by  any  one.  Being  a  minister  of  the 
Gospel,  on  Christmas  day  I  preached,"  &c.  The  pious  Hannah  Kilham,  who 
visited  Liberia  in  1832,  said  nothing  of  the  want,  misery,  and  discontent  de 
scribed  by  Jones.  Can  there  be  a  doubt,  that  if  either  existed,  she  would 
not  have  seen  and  mentioned  it  ?  Dr.  Hodgkin  states,  that  she  left  England 
by  no  means  prepossessed  in  favour  of  Liberia.  She  speaks  of  the  moral  con 
dition  and  comforts  enjoyed  by  many  of  the  colonists,  and  of  the  respectful 
and  cheerful  attention  paid  by  the  pupils  in  the  girls'  school  at  Caldwell,  to  the 
teacher,  whose  union  of  gentleness  and  firmness,  she  extols.  Not  a  word  in 
confirmation  of  Jones. 

Simpson  and  Moore,  two  respectable  coloured  men,  one  of  whom  is  a  clergy 
man,  visited  the  Colony,  at  the  request  of  their  free  coloured  brethren  of 
Natches,  likewise  in  the  year  1832.  The  following  is  the  evidence  they  fur 
nished  :  "  As  a  body,  the  people  of  Liberia,  we  think,  owing  to  their  circum 
stances,  have  risen  in  their  style  of  living,  and  their  happiness,  as  a  community, 
is  far  above  those  of  their  coloured  brethren,  even  the  most  prosperous  of  them, 
that  we  have  seen  in  the  United  States.  They  feel  that  they  have  a  home. 
They  have  no  fear  of  the  white  or  the  coloured  man.  They  have  no  superiors. 
They  do  not  look  up  to  others,  but  they  are  looked  up  toby  them.  Their  laws 
grow  out  of  themselves,  and  are  their  own.  They  truly  sit  under  their  own 


30 

liant  future.  But  in  presenting  the  invitation,  its  duty  is 
performed,  and  it  goes  no  further.  It  disavows  all  constraint 
or  compulsion,  for  these  would  imply  an  authority  which 
no  where  exists,  and  is  no  where  pretended.  It  professes 
itself  the  friend  of  the  coloured  man,  because  he  is  degraded 
by  our  laws,  and  sometimes,  as  in  Pennsylvania,  in  despite 
of  legal  regulations.  It  desires  to  take  him  from  a  country 
where  he  must  languish  in  inferiority,  and  where  he  never 

vine  and  fig-tree,  having  none  to  molest  and  make  them  afraid.  Since  our 
return,  we  have  been  in  the  houses  of  some  of  the  most  respectable  men  of 
colour  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  but  have  seen  none,  on  the  whole,  so 
well  furnished  as  many  of  the  houses  of  Monrovia.  The  floors  are,  in  many 
cases,  well  carpeted,  and  all  things  about  these  dwellings  appear  neat,  conve 
nient,  and  comfortable.  There  are  five  schools,  two  of  which  we  visited,  and 
were  much  pleased  with  the  teachers  and  the  improvement  of  the  children. 
We  found  only  two  persons  who  expressed  any  dissatisfaction; 
and  we  have  had  much  reason  to  doubt  whether  they  had  any  good  cause 
for  it." 

Capt.  Voorhees,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  arrived  at  anchorage  in  the  bay  of 
Montserado  on  the  9th  of  December,  1833.  He  dates  his  report  to  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy  at  that  Cape,  on  the  14th.  He  says,  "  Piracy  has  not  afflicted 
this  quarter  for  some  time ;  and  the  inhabitants  at  the  settlements  living  in 
undisturbed  peace  and  tranquillity,  seem  to  entertain  very  encouraging  confi 
dence  in  their  future  security."  After  speaking  of  the  kind  of  people  who 
should  be  sent  to  Liberia,  he  says,  "Such  persons  of  colour  here,  in  the  land  of 
their  ancestors,  find  a  home  and  a  country,  and  here  only,  do  they  find  them 
selves  redeemed,  regenerated,  and  disenthralled."  An  intelligent  old  man, 
about  sixty  years  of  age,  with  whom  I  conversed,  stated  that  he  had  been  here 
about  eighteen  months,  and  was  getting  on  cleverly  for  himself  and  his 
family,  "  but  that  on  no  account  would  he  return  to  the  United  States."  The 
last  witness  to  whom  it  is  necessary  to  refer,  in  contradiction  of  the  Rev. 
SamuelJones,  is  a  coloured  man,  who  bears  the  name  simply  of  Joseph  Jones. 
He  was  sent  out  by  the  Kentucky  Colonization  Society,  for  the  purpose  of  ex 
amining  "fully  the  situation  of  the  Colony  of  Liberia."  The  Board  of 
Managers  of  the  Kentucky  Society  speak  of  him  "  as  a  man  of  excellent  cha 
racter,  of  a  clear  and  vigorous  understanding,  and  possessed  of  those  qualities 
which  make  a  man  useful  to  society."  He  reached  Liberia  on  the  llth  of 
July,  1833,  and  remained  in  the  Colony  nine  months  and  twenty-nine  days. 
His  testimony,  therefore,  relates  to  Liberia,  as  it  was  about  the  middle  of  the 
year  1834.  To  the  question  put  to  him  during  his  examination,  "  Do  the  colo 
nists  appear  satisfied  ?"  his  reply  is,  "  I  was  particular  in  my  inquiries,  and 
I  found  the  large  majority  well  satisfied,  and  would  not  return  to  this  country 
if  they  could."  The  Editor  of  the  Western  Luminary,  who  had  a  conver 
sation  with  Jones,  says,  under  date  of  30th  July,  1834.  "He  represented  the 
people  as  being  generally  contented,  and  apparently  happy." 


31 

can  be  happy,  to  a  land  capable  of  bestowing  upon  himself  and 
his  posterity  the  blessings  of  happiness  and  liberty  forever. 

One  of  the  inseparable  incidents,  and  unavoidable  effects  of 
Colonization,  is  to  induce  the  emancipation  of  slaves.  It  has 
already  given  freedom  to  above  one  thousand  human  beings. 
The  number  is  small,  only  because  the  ability  of  the  institution 
has  been  restricted.  In  1830,  the  owners  of  upwards  of  six 
hundred  slaves  offered  them  for  manumission,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  being  conveyed  to  Liberia.  The  Society  of  Friends 
of  North  Carolina  manumitted  several  hundred  slaves,  whose 
liberation  had  been  denied  by  the  legislature  for  a  period  of 
fifty  years,  to  enable  them  to  enjoy  freedom  in  the  African 
Colony.  Benevolent  individuals,  who  feel  a  kind  of  paternal 
solicitude  for  the  future  welfare  of  those  servile  dependents, 
entreat  the  Society  to  take  them  for  the  same  munificent 
purpose.  The  noble-minded  liberality  of  M'Donough,  of 
Louisiana,  who  asked  for  legislative  permission  to  educate 
his  servants,  with  a  view  to  ultimate  enfranchisement  in  the 
land  of  their  ancestors,  must  be  vivid  in  the  public  recollec 
tion.  But  the  evidences  of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  South 
ern  masters  to  manumit  their  slaves,  if  a  proper  asylum  can 
be  procured  for  their  reception,  are  too  numerous  and  pub 
lic  to  require  elucidation.  Suffice  it,  that  if  the  funds  of 
the  institution  were  augmented  a  hundred  fold,  and  the  capa 
bilities  of  the  Colony  were  commensurately  increased,  they 
would  all  be  put  in  requisition  by  the  extended  and  increas 
ing  eagerness  manifested  at  the  South  for  voluntary  emanci 
pations.  Ten  thousand  slaves  would  at  this  moment  be  re- 
leased  from  thraldom,  if  they  could  be  transported  from  the 
country.  It  is  upon  these  grounds  that  colonization  addresses 
itself  to  the  benevolent  wishes  and  active  support  of  the 
friends  of  abolition.  Here  is  a  mode  in  which  experience 
has  taught  us  that  abolition  can  be  effected.  But  it  is  ob 
jected  that  the  process  is  slow  ;  that  the  condition  of  expat 
riation  is  hard  and  cruel ;  that  liberations  by  private  indi 
viduals  may  have  the  effect  of  retarding  legislative  action ; 
and  that,  as  it  may  prove  but  a  temporary  assuasive,  it  will 
allure  the  attention  of  the  South  from  the  efficient  remedy. 


32 

Must  it  then  become  a  question  upon  which  benevolence 
can  hesitate,  whether  slavery  in  America  is  preferable  to 
freedom  in  Africa?  But  a  slight  consideration  of  the  objec 
tions  shows,  that  they  are  captious,  untenable,  and  erroneous. 
If  Colonization  decoy  the  inflamed  South  from  the  contem 
plation  of  measures  pursued  by  the  ill-judging  North,  its  re 
sults  must  be  permanently  salutary.  It  restores  that  mental 
equilibrium  which,  on  a  question  affecting  private  property, 
is  essential  to  the  exercise  of  a  just  and  enlightened  discre 
tion.  Whatever  may  be  the  plea  for  interfering  with  pecu 
niary  interest,  and  however  upright  and  disinterested  the 
motive,  any  attempt  to  impair  it,  must  unavoidably  awaken 
feeling  and  bring  about  resistance.  Allay  this  hostility  by 
abstaining  from  harsh  imputations  and  unkindly  acts,  and 
half  the  obstructions  to  abolition  are  removed.  But  why 
will  voluntary  emancipations,  or  the  removal  of  free  blacks 
and  manumitted  slaves,  delay  the  period  of  legislative  action? 
By  what  means,  and  through  what  agency,  is  legislative 
action  effected  ?  Is  it  not  by  that  silent  process  by  which 
private  sentiment  is  influenced  ?  The  slave-holder  who 
nobly  resigns  that  property  which  was  legally  his  own,  has 
new  feelings  and  sensibilities.  He  no  longer  retains  an 
interest  in  the  continuance  of  slavery  as  a  system.  His 
sentiments  are  opposed  to  it.  They  become  as  expansive  as 
is  the  extent  of  his  influence.  Some  adopt  his  reasoning, 
and  imitate  his  example.  These  become  the  centre  of  other 
circles,  which  grow  wider  and  more  numerous,  till  at  length 
they  diffuse  themselves  into  a  dense  and  undistinguished  mass. 
In  proportion  as  the  work  of  private,  emancipation  advances, 
the  cause  of  public  abolition  is  hastened.  With  each  case 
of  voluntary  liberation  secured,  the  seed  is  sown  for  a  future 
and  larger  harvest  of  freemen.  When,  by  these  means,  pri 
vate  sentiment  shall  have  been  roused  to  the  natural  injustice, 
the  republican  inconsistency,  and  political  evils  of  servitude, 
we  may  indulge  a  well-grounded  hope,  that  its  legal  extinc 
tion  is  at  hand.  Is  it  not  then  a  work  to  which  benevolent 
men  and  benevolent  legislatures  ought  to  contribute  ?  If  the 
South  agree  to  part  with  their  slaves,  can  the  North  do  less 


33 

than  incur  the  expense  of  providing  them  with  a  suitable 
abode?  Is  it  a  proof  of  philanthropy  and  patriotism  which 
our  Southern  brethren  can  admit  as  conclusive,  that  the  North 
should  inveigh  against  servitude  without  assisting  to  effect 
its  abolition?  If  slavery  be  a  national  evil,  as  citizens  they 
should  participate  in  the  pecuniary  burdens  which  its  de 
struction  imposes.  With  the  adoption  of  such  sentiments 
and  corresponding  generosity  in  contribution,  the  whole 
South  might  be  drained  of  its  slaves  before  the  actual  cessa 
tion  of  servitude  in  those  Northern  States,  which  vaunt  so 
loudly  of  <  equal  liberty  and  equal  rights/ 

But  the  aims  of  Colonization  are  not  limited  to  the  extinc 
tion  of  bondage  in  America,  but  it  pursues  to  Africa  with 
vigilant  solicitude  the  objects  of  its  sympathies  and  care.  It 
proposes  to  render  them  not  only  free,  but  intelligent  and 
naPPy-  It  offers  for  their  acceptance  a  fertile  and  luxuriant 
country,  requiring  only  the  hand  of  industry  and  labour  to 
render  it  the  garden  spot  of  the  tropics.  It  offers  to  the  un 
informed  emigrant  the  prospect  of  education  by  means  of 
schools  and  libraries,  and  to  the  man  of  serious  and  higher 
contemplations,  the  advantages  of  congregational  devotion. 
It  may  safely  be  asserted,  that  history  presents  no  example 
of  a  Colony  under  better  auspices — none  with  so  many  solid 
reasons  for  the  anticipation  of  success,  and  so  few  to  justify 
the  apprehension  of  failure  or  miscarriage. 

Colonization,  in  the  wide  circle  of  its  benefits,  has  been 
but  partially  displayed.  It  includes  not  merely  abolition, 
and  the  restoration  of  the  African  to  that  liberty  of  which  he 
and  his  progenitors  have  been  deprived  for  ages ;  but  taking 
a  survey  of  consequential  ad  vantages,  it  seeks  the  annihilation 
of  the  slave-trade,  and  the  civilization  of  Africa.  With 
out  yielding  to  that  ardour  of  enthusiasm  which  a  scheme  so 
grand  and  comprehensive  is  calculated  to  inspire,  let  us,  in 
the  sober  spirit  of  philosophical  inquiry,  calmly  look  at  the 
probabilities  of  its  promised  achievements. 

The  detestable  traffic,  called  the  slave-trade,  extensively 
prevails  in  defiance  of  the  laws  and  treaties  made  for  its  sup 
pression.  From  the  acts  passed  by  the  Colonial  Assembly 


34 

of  Virginia,  commencing  in  1699,  down  to  the  period  when 
the  Congress  at  Vienna,  solemnly  engaged  for  its  cessation 
in  Europe,  a  series  of  prohibitory  laws  were  enacted,  and 
many  strenuous  exertions  made,  to  bring  it  to  a  practical  ter 
mination.      All  signally  failed.     Laws  and  treaties,  and  navies 
to  compel  their  execution,  were  alike  ineffectual.     In  1816, 
a  period  subsequent  to  the  abolition  of  the  traffic  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States ;  subsequent  to  the  meeting  at 
Vienna,  and  the  interdict  of  Napoleon ;  the  slaves  annually 
taken  from  the  coast  of  Africa,  were  computed  at  60,000. 
In  1817  the  coast  was  crowded  with  slave-ships,  and  the  trade 
prevailed  to  such  an  extent,  as  to  supersede  and  render  abor 
tive  all  attempts  at  ordinary  commerce.     According  to  the 
report  of  a  Committee  of  Congress,  made  in  the  year  1821, 
the  annual  average  number  of  slaves  withdrawn  from  Wes 
tern  Africa  should  be  estimated  from  50,000  to  80,000.     The 
importations  into  Rio  de  Janeiro,  between  the  years  1820 
and   1829,  continued   annually  to  increase  from   15,000,   to 
upwards  of  43,000.     This  sickening  picture  might  be  height 
ened  by  the  most  revolting  details,  and  presented  with  those 
additional  horrors,  which  a  description  of  the  Middle  Pas 
sage  would  bestow.     But  it  is  enough.     It  shows  that  the 
attempts  to  terminate  the  most  diabolical  traffic  which  ever 
afflicted  and  disgraced  humanity — the  edicts  of  states,  the 
treaties  of  confederate  powers — each  uniting  in  the  denuncia 
tion  of  it  as  piracy,  and  the  punishment  of  it  by  death — 
have  all  been  inoperative  and  powerless.     If  these  be  inade 
quate,  it  may  be  deridingly  asked,  can  the  plan  of  Coloniza 
tion  succeed  ?     Does  it  exhibit  claims  to  attention,  of  which 
such  imposing  endeavours  are  deprived?     Let  us  from  naked 
facts  coolly  consider  the  present  results,  and  deduce  the  cer 
tain  tendencies  of  the  scheme,  and  we  shall  at  least  compre 
hend  the  mode  by  which  it  is  proposed  to  accomplish  a  pur 
pose  so  good  and  stupendous. 

Cape  Messurado,  the  very  spot  selected  for  the  residence 
of  the  first  colonists,  and  the  site  of  the  flourishing  town  of 
Monrovia,  was  a  place  for  the  purchase  and  embarkation  of 
slaves.  Before  the  commencement  of  the  colony,  from  4000 


35 

to  5000  wretched  victims  of  foreign  cupidity,  were  annually 
exported  from  the  harbour.  According  to  Ashmun,  in  the 
year  1823,  between  this  place  and  Cape  Mount,  a  distance  of 
fifty  miles,  now  constituting  perhaps  the  most  thickly  inha 
bited  portion  of  the  settlement,  at  least  2000  persons  were 
shipped  for  the  hopelessness  of  exile  and  slavery  in  a  foreign 
land.  In  1825,  the  same  lamented  writer  declares,  that  from 
Cape  Mount  to  Trade  Town,  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  and  embracing  the  whole  region  formerly  infested,  no 
slaver  dared  attempt  the  guilty  traffic.  The  slave  factories  are 
now  entirely  broken  up.  The  Chiefs  of  the  country  adja 
cent  to  Grand  Bassa,  which  is  within  the  line  of  coast  between 
Cape  Mount  and  Trade  Town,  stipulated  in  the  year  1829, 
to  cease  from  the  slave  trade,  and  to  suppress  it  within  their 
territorial  limits.  The  recaptured  Africans  who  belong  to 
the  colony,  are  among  the  living  trophies  of  its  victories. 
The  great  numbers  which  have  been  recaptured  at  Sierra 
Leone,  and  the  advantage  of  these  convenient  stations  on  the 
coast,  form  powerful  incitements  to  further  activity  and  bra 
very,  on  the  part  of  naval  commanders.  In  addition  to 
these  evidences  of  an  influence  exerted  by  the  colony  upon 
the  African  slave-trade,  might  be  adduced  the  increasing  com 
merce  of  the  colonists  with  the  interior  tribes;  the  progres 
sive  improvement  of  these  by  means  of  their  intercourse 
with  the  settlers;  and  the  growing  sentiment  of  aversion 
towards  the  traffic  among  those  tribes,  which  were  formerly 
distinguished  for  ferocity  and  barbarism.  The  concurring 
opinions  of  respectable  visitors,  and  the  agents  of  the  Parent 
Society,  represent  facts,  of  this  nature,  too  strongly  and 
cogently,  even  to  be  resisted  or  seriously  impunged.  Such 
are  the  prospects,  and  such  have  been  the  effects  of  this  sim 
ple  enterprise,  in  the  destruction  of  a  trade  upon  which  states 
men  and  philanthropists,  from  a  remote  period  in  the  annals 
of  Christian  Europe,  have  expended  their  united  energies 
with  so  little  success. 

Inseparably  connected  with  the  destruction  of  the  slave- 
trade,  or  greatly  dependant  upon  it,  is  the  impression  to  be 
made  upon  the  mind  of  Africa.  Oppressed  with  the  unbro- 


36 

ken  sleep  of  ages,  she  may  not  be  at  once  awakened  from 
her  stupor — amused  with  her  dreams  of  ignorance  and  super 
stition,  she  may  reluctantly  exchange  her  delusion,  for  the 
broad  effulgence  of  life,  the  great  purposes,  the  unimagined 
realities  of  being.  The  reign  of  darkness  and  night  may  for 
a  time  be  permitted  in  the  vicinity  of  light  and  day. 

"  Is't  night's  predominance,  or  the  day's  shame, 
That  darkness  does  the  face  of  earth  entomb, 
When  living  light  should  kiss  it  ?" 

But  the  genius  which  has  given  immortality  to  ancient  Egypt 
— which  nurtured  young  science  in  her  cradle — which  sent 
her  forth  to  Greece,  and  finally  to  Europe — may  break  through 
the  clouds  and  dissipate  the  mists  which  have  so  long  over 
shadowed  and  obscured  it.  With  the  return  of  her  sons  from 
exile,  blest  with  the  glimmering  rays  of  that  light  which  first 
broke  forth  and  dawned  in  their  own  land,  she  will  pursue 
those  steps  which  led  to  former  ascendency,  she  will  reassert 
her  former  dominion,  crowned  with  new  conquests,  and  more 
dazzling  glory. 

"States  fall,  arts  fade,  but  Nature  doth  not  die." 

We  may  look  forward  to  a  period  when  the  hand  of  labour 
will  lessen  the  vast  ocean  of  her  forests ;  when  extended  com 
merce  in  procuring  wealth,  will  bring  its  concomitant  conve 
niences  ;  and  when  a  luxurious  taste  will  spread  about  and 
around  her  the  refinements  of  elegance.  We  may  expect 
a  time  when  the  obelisk  will  mark  the  spot  which  has 
been  known  for  centuries  as  the  residence  of  fierce  and 
untamed  barbarity;  and  when  the  institutions  of  liberty  and 
happiness  wrhich  we  now  enjoy,  the  greatest  and  the  purest 
which  mankind  ever  saw,  shall  be  those  of  a  country,  the 
clanking  of  whose  chains,  and  the  loudness  of  whose  laments 
have  penetrated  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  earth.  We 
may  anticipate  the  coming  of  that  glorious  day,  when  the 
objectless  idolatry  and  blind  superstitions  of  paganism  shall 


37 

be  supplanted  over  the  land  by  the  sublime  spirit,  and  pure 
precepts  of  Christianity.  It  is  in  these  connexions,  that  the 
colonization  of  Africa  presents  to  the  mind  the  most  cheer 
ing  and  ennobling  contemplations.  It  proposes  not  only  to 
elevate  humanity  in  the  scale  of  freedom,  happiness,  and  vir 
tue,  but  it  promises  to  enlarge  the  limits  of  the  scientific 
world,  and  to  extend  the  wide  boundaries  of  Christendom. 

Humble  as  is  the  present  condition  of  the  Colony  of  Libe 
ria,  it  is  big  with  its  ultimate  destination.  Its  effects  are  not 
seen  alone  in  the  quickened  impulses  and  more  generous 
aspirations  of  its  inhabitants.  The  chiefs  and  kings  of  the 
neighbouring  country  seek  the  protection  and  friendship  of 
an  ally  whose  motives  they  cannot  distrust,  and  whose  ability 
they  cannot  question.  They  see  the  fruits  of  superior  intel 
ligence  and  a  better  religion,  in  the  plenty,  comfort  and 
peace  of  the  settlers.  Constant  intercourse  must  beget  an 
improved  taste,  and  the  sense  of  inferiority  must  transfuse  an 
ambition  to  remove  the  cause.  That  impulsion  which  Eu 
rope  received  in  the  middle  ages,  and  which  led  to  the  melio 
ration  of  her  own  savage  manners,  arose  from  her  relations 
with  Asia,  by  means  of  her  pilgrims  to  the  Holy  Land.  The 
contemplation  of  a  superior  society,  and  of  those  refinements 
engendered  by  the  arts,  introduced  new  ideas  of  order — com 
parisons  were  instituted — emulation  was  excited — manners 
grew  less  fierce  and  unrestrained.  The  proximity  of  higher 
cultivation,  must,  by  inevitable  transmission,  produce  the 
most  favourable  effects.  Look  at  the  present  condition  of 
our  western  country.  Originally  settled  by  a  race  of  men, 
but  one  remove  from  the  native  savage,  it  presented  the 
desolation  of  a  moral  and  mental  waste.  As  the  rolling  tide 
of  emigration  approached,  carrying  with  it  elements  of  a 
superior  order,  the  waste  was  nourished  as  if  by  the  neigh 
bouring  breeze;  it  was  cultivated,  and  became  a  garden. 
Look  through  the  history  of  man  from  the  earliest  age  of 
which  tradition  speaks — trace  the  causes  of  his  advance  from 
wildness  to  refinement — and  they  will  be  found  to  be  the 
collisions  of  commerce,  or  the  influences  of  colonial  settle 
ment.  History,  however,  has  taught  us  the  lesson,  that  when 


38 

colonies  are  prompted  by  the  love  of  conquest  or  plunder,  or 
when  nature  has  interposed  impassible  barriers  to  a  free  com 
munion,  that  perpetual  war,  or  servitude,  or  massacre,  is  the 
dire  conclusion.     Memorable  instances  of  each  occur;  but 
it  may  suffice  to  refer  to  that  single  case  which  presents  a 
striking  illustration.     The  colonization  of  America  has  been 
the  means  of  destroying,  not  civilizing  the  ancient  inhabi 
tants.     The  thirst  of  wealth,  of  which  the  presence  of  these 
unfortunate  beings  retarded  the  gratification,  or  those  physi 
cal    differences  which  nature  herself  had   implanted,  as  if 
forever  to  distinguish  between  the  invaders  and  the  invaded, 
formed   sufficient  impediments  to  social  union.     Who    can 
doubt   that  such  would    be    the   consequence   to  Africa  of 
permanent    communities,  formed   within    her   borders    by 
the  inhabitants  of  Europe  ?     Who  can  doubt  that  a  mere 
inversion  of  the  existing  relation  between  Africa  and  Ame 
rica,  would  be  thence  produced?     Who  can  doubt  that  re 
maining   perpetually   distinct,   except   in   anomalous   cases, 
supremacy  on  the  one  side,  and  subserviency  on  the  other, 
or  constant  and  bloody  conflict,  would  be  the  hapless  result? 
But  experience  has  shown  that  the  union  of  the  American 
negro  with  the  native  African,  is  harmonious  and  productive 
of  mutual  advantage.     So  far  has  this  union  advanced,  that 
intermarriages  have  already  occurred  between  the  female 
emigrants  and  the  re-captured  natives.     This  must  introduce 
greater  alacrity,  on  the  part  of  the  natives,  to  adopt  the  cus 
toms  and  habits  of  the  emigrants ; — a  closer  reciprocity  of 
interest,  a  constant  interchange  of  kindly  offices.     It  is  by 
leagues  of  alliance,  both  political  and  domestic,  that  there 
must  spring  up  a  kindred  sympathy,  an  identity  of  feeling, 
which  will  unite  the  two  people  and  render  them  inseparable. 
Each  emigrant  may,  therefore,  be  more  than  a  missionary. 
He  may  be  as  a  fertilizing  stream  in  an  arid  country,  dis 
pensing  greenness  and  beauty  along  its  sterile  banks.     Let 
these  streams  multiply  from  ten  thousand  sources;  let  them  be 
fed  by  generous  tributaries  from  America  and  Europe ;  and 
like  another,  but  greater  and  richer  Nile,  in  their  concen 
trated  mass,   the  vast   and   mighty   sheet   overflowing   the 


39 

continent,  will  convert  its  hideous  and  lifeless  deserts  into  a 
smiling  scene  of  animation  and  verdure.  A  great  moral 
oasis  will  take  the  place  of  diffusive  barrenness,  in  tracts 
known  only  as  the  haunts  of  prowling  animals,  and 

"  Of  savage  men  more  murd'rous  still  than  they." 

It  is  such  aims  and  purposes  which  animate  the  friends  of 
Colonization  to  press  forward,  in  despite  of  the  accumulated 
impediments  which  oppose  their  advance.  Unfounded  pre 
judices  are  raised,  which  must,  by  generating  a  spirit  adverse 
to  the  coloured  man  on  the  one  hand,  and  arraying  the 
North  against  the  South  on  the  other,  bring  about  incalcula 
ble  evils.*  As  the  country  should  be  guarded  from  the 
approach  of  an  inimical  army,  so  it  should  be  warned  against 
the  insidious  attempts  of  foreign  stratagem  to  undermine  its 
allegiance.  What  so  plausible  and  insinuating  as  the  deceit 
ful  guise  of  Christian  benevolence?  What  so  likely  to  sum 
mon  to  its  aid  the  religious  sensibilities  of  a  foreign  country, 
and  the  conscientious  and  unsuspecting  of  ours?  When  we 
find  an  official  functionary  of  Sierra  Leone  publishing  a 
report  intended  to  affect  the  American  Colony  at  Liberia ; 
when  we  find  Englishmen  denouncing  as  absurd  a  project 

*  Mrs.  Childs  cautions  us  against  the  adoption  of  Colonization  principles  on 
the  score  of  their  unpopularity.  The  unfounded  reports  industriously  circulated 
against  the  scheme,  have  excited  much  prejudice  against  it  in  the  minds  of 
many  worthy  persons  belonging  to  our  free  black  population.  This,  too,  may 
be  said,  that  preaching  at  the  North  against  Southern  slavery  can  be  easily 
done,  as  it  costs  nothing  but  the  writing  and  publication  of  the  sermons.  Colo 
nization,  on  the  other  hand,  requires  constant  pecuniary  sacrifices  to  convey  to, 
and  maintain  the  objects  of  its  care  in  Liberia.  It  is  for  this  reason  not  so 
cheap  a  philanthropy  as  some  others.  As  it  requires  money  in  its  sup 
port,  the  Southern  states  may  naturally  believe,  that  Northern  people  would 
not  engage  in  it  without  pure  and  disinterested  motives,  either  of  patriotism 
or  benevolence.  Touching  the  argument  of  James  G.  Birney,  derived 
from  the  successive  dissolution  of  several  Colonization  Societies  in  the  South 
west,  that  the  plan  contains  no  permanent  animating  principle,  I  may  refer 
to  the  Abolition  Society  of  Maryland,  which  was  dissolved  in  the  year  1798, 
having  existed  only  seven  years.  The  Protection  Society  of  that  state,  formed 
for  similar  purposes,  by  Elisha  Tyson,  some  years  after,  met  with  a  similar 
fate.  The  same  may  be  said  of  most  of  the  benevolent  projects  of  the  age. 


40 

which  they  themselves  originated  and  still  continue  to  pa 
tronise;  when  we  find  our  glorious  Constitution  the  object  of 
absurd,  but  censorious  and  ruthless  attack;  when  we  find  two 
British  agents  in  the  Eastern  and  Northern  country  railing  at 
institutions  over  which  their  auditors  have  neither  jurisdic 
tion  nor  control;  can  we  doubt  of  the  existence  of  a  well 
defined  object,  a  settled  and  systematic  design?  It  seems 
manifest,  that  the  Anti-slavery  Societies,  from  their  princi 
ples,  connexions  and  acts,  are  of  foreign  parentage — that 
their  formation  was  dictated  by  English  party  politicians, 
with  the  view,  by  making  a  direct  assault  upon  the  constitu 
tional  union  of  the  United  States,  to  compass  their  objects  at 
home. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  deduce  the  history  of  our  intercourse 
from  the  earliest  times,  with  the  great  people  from  whom 
we  are  descended,  to  perceive  in  the  movements  of  one  of 
her  political  parties,  a  constant  distrust,  an  unvarying  watch 
fulness  of  her  offspring.  But  all  nations  now  attest  the  rapid 
approximation  of  what  has  long  been  foreseen  and  antici 
pated,  that  this  republic  united,  would  rival  and  at  length 
supplant  England,  in  her  maritime  and  manufacturing  ascen 
dency.  No  panting  after  superior  greatness  could  outrun  the 
certain  but  quick  advances  of  her  youthful  and  more  vigor 
ous  competitor.  That  which  she  could  not  obtain  by  the 
direct  agency  of  energetic  exertion,  she  might  realize  by  the 
indirection  of  diplomatic  subtlety.  If  the  glory  of  that  rising 
country  could  be  prevented  by  distraction  of  councils — divi 
sion  among  its  members — separation  of  its  union, — all  the 
bright  hopes  of  its  youthful  promise,  all  the  dread  fears  of  its 
opening  career,  would,  in  a  moment,  be  dissipated  and  dis 
pelled.  The  cloven  foot  of  this  policy  was  discovered  soon 
after  the  commencement  of  our  government.  It  has  been  equal- 
lyperceptible  in  the  controversies  growing  out  of  the  tariff.* 


*  The  English  apprehended  much  detriment  to  their  manufacturing  interests 
from  the  passage  of  our  tariff  acts.  We  all  remember  the  clamour  of  a  party  in 
England  against  them.  One  or  two  Englishman  greatly  contributed  by  their 
writings,  to  inflame  the  people  of  South  Carolina  against  these  laws,  and  thus 
prepared  them  for  theadmission  of  the  famous  nullification  doctrines.  It  was  one 


41 

But  patriotic  ardour  has  defeated  it  all.  The  delicate  ques 
tion  of  negro  emancipation,  not  springing  from  temporary 
causes,  nor  likely  to  subside  with  temporary  interests,  held 
out  its  alluring  but  deceptive  promises. 

It  would  be  well  for  reflecting  Americans  to  examine  the 
causes  of  that  popular  tumultuary  eruption  which  led  to  the 
sudden  formation  of  societies  in  dereliction  of  the  ancient  and 
recognised  principles  of  gradual  emancipation — principles 
announced  in  the  Charters  of  our  Abolition  Societies,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  uniform  tenor  of  our  abolition  acts.* 


of  these  writers  who  dared  to  calculate  the  value  of  the  union  to  South  Carolina. 
— It  should  not  be  omitted,  however,  that  other  manufacturing  nations  abroad 
are  not  less  jealous  of  the  progress  of  American  industry.  It  is  said,  and  there 
is  sufficient  reason  to  believe,  that  in  the  year  1832,  when  a  Bill  was  before 
Congress  "  for  promoting  the  growth  and  manufacture  of  Silk,"  which  had 
been  reported  and  strongly  recommended  by  the  Committee  on  Agriculture, 
and  which  appeared  to  have  the  assent  of  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives,  the  minister  of  France  openly  declared  himself  opposed  to  the  bill,  and 
it  is  probable,  considering  the  great  interests  then  and  now  in  suspense  between 
the  two  nations,  that  his  opposition  did  not  a  little  contribute  to  its  rejection,  af 
ter  it  had  passed  in  committee  of  the  whole. 

*  The'  charter  of  "  The  Pennsylvania  Society  for  promoting  the  Abolition 
of  Slavery,"  &c.  enacted  into  a  law  on  the  8th  of  December,  1789,  has  these 
words  for  its  first  section  :  "  Whereas  a  voluntary  Society  has  for  some  time 
subsisted  in  this  State,  by  the  name  and  title  of  The  Pennsylvania  Society  for 
promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery,  and  the  relief  of  free  negroes  unlawfully 
held  in  bondage,'  which  has  evidently  co-operated  with  the  views  of  the  legisla 
ture,  expressed  in  the  act  of  the  General  Assembly  of  this  Commonwealth, 
passed  the  Jirst  day  of  March,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1780,  entitled  '  An  act 
for  the  GRADUAL  abolition  of  slavery,'  and  a  supplement  thereto,  passed  the 
29th  day  of  March,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1788."  It  thus  appears  by  the 
Charter  of  this  Society — the  fundamental  law  of  the  body  corporate,  without 
which  it  could  not  have  a  legal  existence — that  its  views  were  confined  to 
gradual  abolition. — The  Biennial  Conventions  of  the  various  Abolition  Socie 
ties  in  the  Union  have  repeatedly  sanctioned  the  principle  of  gradual  emancipa 
tion.  The  Convention  which  met  at  Washington,  Dec.  8,  1829,  express  their 
belief  that  abolition  "  can  only  be  obtained  by  very  gradual  means,"  that  laws 
fixing  a  future  period  for  the  freedom  of  slaves  had  met  the  approbation  of  form 
er  Conventions  ;  that  the  idea  of  immediate  freedom  had  encountered  universal 
reprobation  ;  and  that  "gradual  abolition  is  the  only  mode  which  at  present  ap 
pears  likely  to  receive  the  public  sanction."  See  minutes  of  the  21st  Biennial 
American  Convention,  pp.  27,  8,  9. — All  of  our  abolition  acts  proceed  upon  the 
principle  of  gradual  emancipation.  Pennsylvania  set  the  example  in  1780. 
Connecticut  followed  in  1784.  Rhode  Island  a  little  later  the  same  year.  New 
6 


42 

It  would  be  well  for  Americans  to  pause  before  they  adopt, 
at  the  suggestion  of  foreigners,  a  philanthropy  which  incites 
to  turbulent  invective  and  acrimonious  clamour,  against  an 
honest  and  well  intended  benevolence.  They  should  examine 

York  in  1799,  arid  New  Jersey  in  1804  These  acts  all  adopt  the  principle  of 
gradual  and  prospective  abolition. — The  other  non-slave-holding  states  in  which 
legal  slavery  has  been  adjudged  to  be  incompatible  with  their  Constitu 
tions,  have  always  had  very  few  or  no  slaves.  I  allude  to  Maine,  Massa 
chusetts,  New  Hampshire,  and  Vermont,  in  the  latter  of  which  states  only,  in 
the  year  1790,  there  were  slaves.  In  that  year,  Vermont  had  seventeen 
slaves.  Slavery  was  prohibited  in  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois,  before  these 
communities  were  admitted  to  the  rank  of  states,  by  the  celebrated  compact 
of  1787,  for  the  cession  of  the  North  Western  Territory  to  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.  Whether  the  prohibition,  which,  in  accordance  with  the  Compact  and 
Ordinance  of  Congress,  was  afterwards  introduced  into  the  Constitutions  of  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Illinois,  has  been  expunged  in  either,  I  have  not  been  able  to 
ascertain ;  but  certain  it  is,  in  Illinois,  slaves  are  returned  in  1810  and  1820, 
and  according  to  the  census  of  1830,  there  exist  746  slaves  in  the  state.  Suffi 
cient,  however,  has  been  said,  to  show  that  gradual  emancipation  has  been  the 
characteristic  feature  of  all  the  legislation  in  this  country.  This  sentiment  is 
not  affected  by  the  judicial  construction  which  has  been  put  upon  the  Constitu 
tions  of  several  of  the  states  in  which  there  were  few  or  no  slaves  whatever, 
especially  as  judges  are  governed  by  their  own  abstract  notions  of  what  the 
law  is.  In  Pennsylvania,  the  Constitution  contains  a  similar  article  to  that 
which,  in  Massachusetts,  had  been  judicially  pronounced  inconsistent  with 
slavery,  and  yet  the  seven  judges  composing  the  then  High  Court  of  Errors 
and  Appeals,  solemnly  determined,  "that  it  was  their  unanimous  opinion  slavery 
was  not  inconsistent  with  any  clause  of  the  Constitution  of  Pennsylvania." 
With  regard  to  the  policy  of  the  immediate  or  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  at  the 
South,  that  is  not  the  question  in  this  place ;  but  I  may  be  pardoned  for  quot 
ing  the  concurring  sentiment  of  Anthony  Benezet  and  Dr.  Fothergill,  upon  this 
subject,  as  the  latter  contributed  so  largely  to  the  passage  of  our  abolition  act. 
In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Fothergill,  under  date  of  4th  month  28th,  1773,  Benezet 
writes:  "/am  Like-minded  with,  thee,  with  respect  to  the  danger  and  difficulty 
which  would  attend  a  sudden  manumission  of  those  negroes  now  in  the  Southern 
colonies,  as  well  to  themselves  as  to  the  whites."  Again : — The  danger  of 
immediate  abolition  in  places  where  slaves  constitute  a  large  part  of  the 
population,  as  in  the  Southern  country,  is  distinctly  admitted  by  Jonathan 
Edwards,  (an  unwilling  witness,)  in  an  appendix  to  a  sermon  which  he  pro 
nounced  at  New  Haven,  in  1791.  He  had  contended  in  his  sermon,  upon 
general  principles,  for  the  necessity  of  immediate  abolition ;  upon  the  doctrine 
being  impugned  as  dangerous,  he  thus  distinguishes  between  the  Northern  and 
Southern  states.  "  As  it  respects  the  Northern,  in  which  slaves  are  so  few, 
there  is  not  the  least  foundation  to  imagine,  that  they  would  combine  or  make 
insurrection  against  the  government ;  or  that  they  would  attempt  to  murder 
their  masters."  "  With  regard  to  the 

Southern  states,  the  case  is  different.    The  negroes  in  some  parts  of  those 


43 

the  long  list  of  Colonization  advocates,  and  see  whether  the 
first  statesmen,  jurists,  and  citizens  of  this  country,  are  capa~ 
ble  of  the  detestable  hypocrisy  of  aiming,  through  its  means, 
at  the  perpetuation  of  servitude.  They  should  coolly  investi 
gate  the  immediate  bearings  and  remote  results  of  Colonization. 
They  should  dispassionately  compare  the  declarations  of  its 
enemies  with  the  certainty  of  its  present  performances,  and 
the  probabilities  of  its  future  influence.* 

states  are  a  great  majority  of  the  whole,  and  therefore  the  evils  objected  would, 
in  case  of  a  general  manumission  at  once,  be  more  likely  to  take  place."  Since 
1773  and  1791,  when  Benezet  and  Edwards  respectively  wrote,  the  slaves  at 
the  south  have  greatly  increased  in  number;  and  as  a  consequence,  the  "  dan 
ger  and  difficulty"  as  expressed  by  one,  and  the  "evils  ofthroat-cuttina-,  thiev 
ing,  and  plundering,"  as  apprehended  by  the  other,  from  a  sudden  or  general 
manumission  at  once,  are  by  no  means  diminished  at  the  present  day. 

*  The  best  reply  that  can  be  made  to  attacks  upon  the  motives  of  coloniza- 
tionists,  is  to  display  the  names  of  the  officers  and  friends  of  the  Colonization 
Societies — men  of  the  first  virtue  and  talents  in  the  country — whom  the  country 
delights  to  honour,  and  whom  nearly  every  party  holds  in  a  respect  approach 
ing  to  veneration.  I  may  name  the  venerable  Bishop  White,  John  Marshall, 
and  James  Madison,  who  is  President,  of  the  parent  Society.  No  one 
will  suspect  these  men  of  favouring  a  scheme,  which  has  for  its  object, 
or  can  have  for  its  effect,  the  perpetuation  of  negro  bondage!  If  any  one 
is  too  idle  to  investigate  for  himself  what  the  inevitable  fruits  of  Colonization 
principles,  judiciously  administered,  are,  let  him  consult  the  pages  of  bright 
names  which  the  annual  reports  furnish,  as  officers  of  the  parent  and  state 
societies,  and  make  himself  acquainted  with  the  many  benevolent  private 
individuals,  who  are  silent,  but  devoted  friends  of  the  cause.  Let  him  read  the 
former  testimonies  of  the  Abolition  Societies  themselves  to  the  principles  and 
effects  of  Colonization.  The  Convention  of  these  Societies  which  met  at  Wash^ 
ington,  in  1829,  uses  this  language  ;  "  A  great  recommendation  of  the  measure 
(Colonization)  arises  from  the  fact,  that  it  is  the  only  efficient  one  which  is  likely 
to  be  speedily  sanctioned  by  the  people ;  and  is  the  only  one  by  which  volunta 
ry  emancipation,  in  most  of  the  slave-holding  States,  can  be  effected."  See 
Minutes,  &c.  p.  34. — Among  the  departed  worthies,  natives  and  foreigners, 
who  gave  to  the  principles  upon  which  the  Society  proceed,  their  concurrence, 
I  may  record  the  late  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  celebrated  Granville  Sharp,  the 
amiable  Anthony  Benezet,  the  truly  philanthropic  Elisha  Tyson,  the  immortal 
William  Wilberforce,  and  the  lamented  Hannah  Kilham. 

It  is  well  known  that  Thomas  Jefferson  formed  a  plan  in  1777,  to  colonize 
the  free  blacks,  but  the  circumstances  of  the  country  prevented  the  execution 
of  the  project. 

Granville  Sharp,  in  1787,  colonized  at  Sierra  Leone,  400  blacks,  who  were 
thrown  upon  their  resources  in  the  streets  of  London,  in  consequence  of  the 
decision  of  the  English  judiciary,  in  the  case  of  the  negro  Somerset. 

Anthony  Benezet  proposes,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Dr.  Fothergill,  in  1773,  to 


44 

If  we  scan  with  a  philosophic  eye  the  great  subject  of  ef 
facing  the  national  stain  of  servitude,  and  of  aiding  the 
moral  and  social  well  being  of  the  coloured  man,  we  discern 
at  once  that  the  mists  of  passion  and  the  prejudices  of  party, 


colonize  the  negroes  of  the  United  States,  in  "  that  large  extent  of  country, 
from  the  west  side  of  the  Alleghany  mountains  to  the  Mississippi,  on  a  breadth 
of  four  or  five  hundred  miles." 

Elisha  Tyson  was  for  many  years  opposed  to  the  scheme  of  colonizing  the 
free  blacks  in  Africa.  Towards  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  his  views  entirely 
changed  upon  the  subject.  His  biographer  observes,  "  It  was  not  until  the 
closing  period  of  Mr.  Tyson'y  life,  that  this  (the  Colonisation)  Society  enjoyed 
his  confidence."  *  *  *  "  Universal  emancipation,,  connected  with  Coloni 
zation,  was  the  favourite  theme  of  his  declining  age,  and  the  last  days  of  his 
existence  were  cheered  by  the  hopes  which  seemed  to  beam  on  him  through 
the  dark  vista  of  futurity,  of  the  glorious  realization  of  his  wishes."  Life  of 
E.  Tyson,  p.  Ill  and  120. 

William  Wilberforce,  it  has  been  asserted,  renounced  Colonization  just 
before  he  died.  I  can  hardly  think  that  recantation  an  act  of  free  volition, 
which  was  made  under  circumstances,  and  at  a  time,  when  the  energies  of 
nature,  it  is  said,  were  nearly  extinct,  and  when  a  testamentary  disposition, 
could  hardly  have  been  binding.  I  prefer  the  conclusions  of  the  mind,  in  a  bet 
ter  condition  of  the  body — we  look  for  the  mens  sana  in  corpore  sano.  A  letter 
of  which  the  following  is  an  extract,  was  written  by  William  Wilberforce  to 
Elliott  Cresson,  when  his  faculties,  mental  and  physical,  were  sound.  He 
refers  to  the  American  Colonization  Society — "  You  have  gladdened  my  heart 
by  convincing  me,  that  sanguine  as  had  been  my  hopes  of  the  happy  effects  to  be 
produced  by  your  Institution,  all  my  anticipations  are  scanty  and  cold  compared 
with  the  reality.  This  may  truly  be  deemed  a  pledge  of  the  Divine  favour,  and 
believe  me,  no  Briton,  I  had  almost  said  no  American,  can  take  a  livelier  inter 
est  than  myself,  in  your  true  greatness  and  glory."  &c.  &c.  Vide,  Fifteenth- 
Annual  Report  Am.  Col.  Soc.  p.  15. 

Hannah  Kilham,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends  in  England,, 
and  well  known  for  her  great  benevolence  and  ardent  piety,  visited  Liberia  in 
1832.  She  thus  expresses  herself  in  a  letter  written  while  in  the  colony.  "  This 
colony  altogether  presents  quite  a  new  scene  of  combined  African  and  Ameri 
can  interest.  I  cannot  but  hope  and  trust,  that  it  is  the  design  of  Infinite  Good 
ness  to  prepare  a  home  in  this  land  for  many  who  have  been  denied  the  full 
extent  of  privilege  in  Ihe  land  of  their  birth  ;  and  that  some,  who  are  brought 
here  but  as  a  shelter  and  resource  for  themselves,  may,  through  the  visitation  of 
Heavenly  Goodness  in  their  own  minds,  and  the  further  leadings  of  Divine 
Love,  become  ministers  of  the  glad  tidings  of  the  Gospel,  to  many  who  are  now- 
living  in  darkness,  and  the  shadow  of  death." 

Elliott  Cresson  whose  zeal  in  the  cause  led  him,  as  agent,  to  make  a  protract 
ed  visit  to  England,  without  compensation,  found  many  benevolent  spirits,  and 
warm  advocates  of  Colonization  in  that  land.  [See  statement  of  the  names  of 


45 

are  all  that  obstruct  its  happy  termination.  If  the  Abolition- 
Societies,  as  they  were  constituted  before  the  announcement 
of  anti-slavery  principles,  would  unostentatiously  prosecute 
their  benevolent  labours  of  educating  the  free  negroes,  and 

contributors  and  the  amount  of  his  collections,  in  England,  as  published  in  the 
African  Repository  for  April,  1834.]  He  was  the  means  of  forming  there  a 
society  in  aid  of  the  enterprise,  composed  of  men  of  the  highest  rank,  of 
distinguished  talents,  and  reputed  piety.  They  consider  the  plan  as  admir 
ably  calculated  to  introduce  Christianity  and  civilization  among  the  natives  of 
Africa,  and  to  extirpate  the  slave-trade,  "  which,"  say  they,  "the  naval  efforts 
of  Great  Britain  and  other  powers,  have  been  unable  to  suppress."  The  follow 
ing  are  the  officers  of  THE  BRITISH  AFRICAN  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY.  They 
will  be  recognised  as  among  the  most  illustrious  characters  in  the  Kingdom. 

Patron. — His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Sussex.  President. — The 
Right  Honourable  Lord  Bexley.  Vice  Presidents. — His  Grace  the  Duke  of 
Bedford,  His  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  the  most  Noble  the  Mar 
quis  of  Westminster,  the  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  George  Murray,  Bart.  K.  C.  B.,  T. 
Richardson,  Esq.  (of  Stamford  Hill),  Lord  Advocate  Jeffrey,  H.  Wilson 
Esq.,  Rev.  Lord  Arthur  Hervey,  John  Ivatt  Briscoe,  Esq.  M.  P.,  James 
Douglas,  Esq,  (of  Cavers),  B.  Hawes,  Esq.  M.  P..  Sir  George  Ouseley. 
Treasurer. — J.  Biddulph,  Esq.  Hon.  Secretary. — Captain  J.J.  Chapman. 

In  addition  to  these  there  are  many  private  individuals  in  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  who  have  generously  contributed  considerable  sums  of  money  to  this 
noble  charity,  and  whose  pens  have  been  enlisted  in  the  cause.  Among  these 
I  give  the  following  : 

Dr.  Hodgkin,  a  distinguished  and  benevolent  physician  of  London.  He  has 
published  at  his  own  expense  three  valuable  pamphlets  in  defence  of  the  Society 
and  its  colony. 

John  Bevans,  the  Editor  of  the  Herald  of  Peace — the  author  of  the  Vindica 
tion  of  Liberia  and  other  able  articles. 

Rev.  Henry  Duncan,  D.D.  Dumfries,  the  founder  of  the  first  Savings  Bank — 
a  warm  and  zealous  advocate  of  African  Colonization. 

James  Simpson,  Esq.  of  Edinburg,  has  vindicated  the  cause  in  the  Phrenolo 
gical  Journal  with  great  ability. 

Rev.  Edward  Higginson,  of  Hull,  the  author  of  "  Liberia  philanthropically 
and  economically  considered." 

Thomas  Greer  Jacob,  a  Friend,  of  Belfast,  in  a  series  of  letters  exposed  the 
sophistry  and  disingenuousness  of  the  anti-colonizationists,  and  the  duty  of  sup 
porting  the  Society  in  its  benevolent  labours.  Several  distinguished  Friends  con 
tributed  largely  to  its  funds;  among  them,  R.  D.  Alexander,  of  Ipswich,  raised  for 
the  Society  £600  sterling.  His  friend,  the  immortal  Thomas  Clarkson,  whose 
labours  in  the  cause  of  African  freedom  have  been  greater  than  those  of  any  man 
living,  is  strongly  attached  to  the  Society,  and  duly  appreciates  its  important  re 
sults.  "  This  venerable  man,"  says  the  15th  Report  of  the  American  Colonization 
Society,  "  now  sinking  under  a  weight  of  years,  and  almost  blind,  listened  to  the 
details  of  the  Society's  operations  with  an  enthusiastic  delight,  such,  as  a, 


46 

assisting  those  who  are  illegally  retained  in  bondage, 
the  work  of  Colonization  would  go  prosperously  onward  and 
the  fabric  of  slavery  would  crumble  into  ruins.  Having  re 
nounced  their  partial  alliance  with  treasonable  doctrines  and 
transatlantic  emissaries;  having  sacrificed  upon  the  altar  of 
patriotism  and  union  the  new  fangled  notion  of  immediate 
and  total  abolition  ;*  and  pursuing  those  legitimate  and 

friend  remarked,  he  had  not  manifested  for  twenty  years ;  and  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Cresson  observes,  'for  myself,  I  am  free  to  say,  that  of  all  things  that 
have  been  going  on  in  our  favour  since  1787,  when  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade  was  seriously  proposed,  that  which  is  going  on  in  the  United  States  is 
the  most  important.  It  surpasses  every  thing  that  has  yet  occurred.  No 
sooner  had  your  colony  been  established  on  Cape  Montserado,  than  there  ap 
peared  a  disposition  among  the  owners  of  slaves  to  give  them  freedom  volunta 
rily  and  without  compensation,  and  to  allow  them  to  be  sent  to  the  land  of 
their  fathers,  so  that  you  have  many  thousands  redeemed,  without  any  cost 
for  their  redemption.  To  me  this  is  truly  astonishing.  Can  this  have  taken 
place  without  the  intervention  of  the  spirit  of  God  ?'  Report,  pages  14,  et  seq. 

Douglas,  of  Cavers,  contributed  £200  to  its  funds,  and  the  eloquent  appeals 
of  Jeffrey,  Murray,  Solicitor  General  Cockburn  and  Lord  Moncrieff  will  long  be 
remembered  by  the  brilliant  assemblages  drawn  around  them  at  Edinburg, 
Mrs.  Miles  Fletcher,  so  justly  beloved  by  our  countrymen  who  have  visited  the 
northern  Athens,  has  given  to  the  cause  the  aid  of  her  powerful  influence, 

Rev.  Josiah  Pratt  has  furnished  valuable  articles  in  the  Missionary  Herald 
throughout  the  whole  period  of  the  colonial  history  of  Liberia. 

*  The  example  of  the  effects  produced  in  England  by  the  denunciations  of 
the  press,  and  the  exhibitions  of  popular  feeling,  against  slavery,  by  leading  to  an 
act  of  Parliament,  abolishing  slavery  in  Jamaica,  has  been  thought  to  justify  sim- 
ilar  attempts  at  agitation  in  the  Northern  sections  of  the  United  States.  In  Eng 
land,  this  clamour  was  raised  among  a  people  that  had  control  over  Slavery  in 
Jamaica.  The  English  Parliament  had  a  right  to  legislate  upon  the  subject.  But 
it  does  not  seem  to  be  known  or  understood,  that  the  legislatures  of  the  non- 
slave-holding  states,  and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  existence  of  slavery  at  the  South.  They  have  no  jurisdiction  over  the  ter 
ritory.  Each  state,  with  regard  to  its  own  internal  concerns,  is  an  independent 
sovereignty,  and  in  relation  to  these  concerns,  it  can  no  more  be  governed  by 
the  legislation  of  the  others  or  Congress,  than  by  an  act  of  the  British  Parliament 
or  a  bull  of  the  Pope  of  Rome.  If  Englishmen,  who  declaim  at  the  North  against 
Southern  slavery,  could  be  taught  that  they  are  preaching  to  impotent  hearers, 
they  might  save  themselves  much  unnecessary  trouble  and  the  cause  much 
disservice.  But  enough  is  said  in  a  former  note  to  show,  that  the  doctrine  of 
these  individuals,  and  of  the  Anti-slavery  Societies,  with  respect  to  immediate 
abolition,  is  opposed  to  the  sentiments  of  unquestioned  philanthropists. 

Touching  the  fearful  experiment  which  has  been  made  in  Jamaica,  it  is 
sincerely  hoped  that  the  event  will  justify  the  predictions  of  the  advocates  of  the 
measure,  and  disappoint  the  confident  expectations  of  those  who  were  opposed 


47 

praiseworthy  objects  which  had  more  recently  called  forth 
their  energies ;  they  might  prepare  their  subjects  for  more 
extensive  liberty  and  a  larger  sphere  of  action  in  another 
hemisphere.  Humanity  and  religion  will  rejoice  at  the 
spectacle  of  two  societies,  a  little  variant  at  one  stage  of  their 
history,  uniting  and  co-operating  in  the  design  of  extirpating 
what  each  must  regard  as  the  greatest  of  social  and  political 

to  it.  But  we  already  find  that  the  apprentices,  so'called,  do  not  perform  half 
their  accustomed  labours  ;  that  the  crops  will  not  be  quarter  the  usual  size  ;  an.d 
that  much  insubordination,  disturbance  and  panic  have  been  excited.  These 
consequences  have  resulted  notwithstanding  the  guard  of  a  strict,  vigilant  and 
exacting  police,  and  the  terrors  of  a  formidable  naval  force.  It  has,  indeed,  been 
argued  that  nothing  worse  can  happen,  and  that  things  will  grow  better 'when 
the  novelty  of  freedom  shall  have  worn  away.  However  desirable  this  be,  is  such 
a  presumption  justified  by  existing  facts  ?  The  apprentices  have  yet  only 
heard  the  sound  of  abolition,  without  experiencing  its  enjoyments.  Each  set 
are  confined  to  their  appropriate  estate  as  formerly,  and  though  the  disposition 
may  be  imparted,  the  power  to  do  mischief,  has  been  prudently  withheld.  Union, 
concert,  in  a  word,  the  ability  to  conspire,  are  wanting.  But,  will  not  the  case 
be  Changed,  when  these  apprenticeships  shall  have  expired?  The  slaves 
must  then  be  free  and  unshackled,  enjoying  the  influence,  as  well  as  hearing  the 
name  of  liberty.  They  will  be  their  own  masters,  (and  happy  will  it  be,  if 
they  do  not  prove  the  masters  of  all  around  them,)  having  the  right  of  locomo- 
tion,  of  which  they  are  now  deprived.  Can  it  be  doubted,  that  if  they  want 
only  this  power  at  present,  for  the  commission  of  fell  barbarities,  the  inclina 
tion  will  not  be  wanting  a  few  years  hence  ? 

In  England,  certain  benevolent  spirits  seem  to  be  so  well  satisfied  that  the 
work  of  freedom  is  accomplished  at  home,  that  they  have  formed  a  'British and 
Foreign  Society  for  the  universal  abolition  of  negro  slavery,'  with  a  view  to  aid 
the  cause  of  emancipation  throughout  the  world.  No  exception  can  be  taken 
to  the  most  expansive  philanthrophy,  provided  it  does  not  interfere  with  the  ex 
ercise  of  that  charity  which  begins  at  home.  In  the  case  before  us,  it  is  appre 
hended,  much  remains  for  enlightened  benevolence  to  undertake.  What  has 
the  Act  of  Parliament  done  ?  Has  it  effected  that  mental  preparation  which  is 
necessary  for  the  ultimate  freedom  of  these  apprentices  ?  Has  it  placed  the  negro 
child  at  school,  or  given  to  him  a  spelling  book  or  Bible  ?  If  the  act  has  not 
done  this,  should  not  a  society,  whose  sympathies— bounded  only  by  the  confines 
of  this  terraqueous  globe— are  felt  across  the  Atlantic  in  the  various  forms  of 
frothy  missives  and  mad-cap  missionaries,  attend  to  so  vital  a  concern  ?  The  dis 
enthralling  of  the  soul  is  quite  as  important  as  that  of  the  body,  and  must  neces 
sarily  precede  it.  Ireland  is  thought  by  some  to  be  in  an  enslaved  condition" 
What  would  Britain  say  to  a  society  formed  in  this  country  for  the  establish, 
ment  of  universal  liberty,  and  which,  in  furtherance  of  that  design,  should  send 
>ut  emissaries  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  that  mild  and  amiable  abolitionist,  Dan 
iel  O  Connell,  m  his  patriotic  efforts  at '  agitation'  there  ? 


48 

evils.  With  such  concert  of  effort  we  may  expect  to  realize 
those  dazzling  visions  of  the  future,  which  open  upon  the 
imagination.  We  may  promise  ourselves  the  ability  to  explore 
and  know  that  immense  and  interesting  region  which  so  many 
travellers  have  attempted  in  vain  to  survey  and  examine. 
We  may  picture  to  ourselves,  though  in  distant  perspective, 
the  certain  but  complete  civilization  of  a  barbarous  country; 
its  majestic  forests  converted  into  beautiful  and  luxuriant 
fields;  its  mighty  rivers  rendered  the  great  tributaries  of 
wealth,  and  the  highways  of  enterprise.  We  may  indulge 
the  hope  that  the  Nile  and  the  Niger  may  bear  upon  their 
swelling  waters  the  power  conferred  upon  navigation  by  the 
genius  of  Fulton,  and  that  those  other  arts  of  America  which 
minister  to  convenience  and  luxury  here,  may,  in  Africa, 
find  a  genial  and  a  welcome  home.  We  may  hope  that  the 
institutions  of  America,  save  those  which  legalize  oppression, 
may  be  transplanted  into  the  African  soil,  there  to  flourish, 
blossom,  and  fructify.  With  such  foundations  we  may  expect 
the  elegancies  of  literature  to  animate  a  people  whom  antiquity 
knew  as  illustrious — that  English  literature,  the  common  in 
heritance  of  Britons  and  Americans,  may  be  studied,  ad 
mired  and  imitated.  For  of  Africa  we  may  emphatically 
say, 

" unto  us  she  hath  a  spell  beyond 

Her  name  in  story,  and  her  long  array 
Of  mighty  shadows — " 

We  may  picture  her  superstitions  dissipated  by  the  sun 
of  science,  and  her  idolatry  converted  into  worship  by 
the  inspired  eloquence  of  her  Origens,  Tertullians,  Cy 
prians,  and  Augustines.*  It  is  thus  we  shall  witness  the 
realization  of  prophetic  truth,  that  < Ethiopia  shall  soon 
stretch  forth  her  hands  unto  God;'  it  is  thus  we  shall  witness 
the  Christian  temple  rearing  its  heaven-directed  spire  in  the 
heart  of  Africa,  and  illuminating  with  its  divine  effulgence 
the  remotest  parts  of  a  dreary  and  benighted  land. 

*  These  great  teachers  of  Christianity  in  their  day,  were  Africans.  In  the 
fifth  century,  it  is  estimated  that  there  were  four  hundred  Catholic  Bishops  in 
Africa. 


COLONIZATION  HYMNS. 

The  following  Hymns  were  written  on  the  sailing  of  the  Ninus,  with  one  hun 
dred  and  twenty-six  enfranchised  Slaves,  to  found  the  new  Colony  at  Bassa 
Cove,  October  24th,  1834, — the  152d  Anniversary  of  Penn's  landing  in  the 
Delaware. 


BY  MRS.  SIGOURNEY. 

A  ship  came  o'er  the  ocean 

When  this  Western  World  was  young1, 
And  the  forest's  solemn  shadow 

O'er  hill  and  valley  hung,— 
It  came ;— o'er  trackless  billows, 

The  Man  of  Peace  to  bear, 
And  the  savage  chieftain  eyed  him 

Like  lion  in  his  lair. 
But  'neath  the  o'erarching  Elm-tree 

An  oathless  truce  was  made, 
And  the  ambush  wild  no  more  sprang 

From  out  the  leafy  glade, 
Nor  the  dread  war-whoop  startled 

Lone  midnight's  slumbering  band, 
For  red  men  took  the  law  of  love, 

As  from  a  brother's  hand ; 
And  they  blessed  him  while  he  founded 

This  City  of  our  love, 
Where  now  we  strike  the  lyre  of  praise, 

To  Him  who  rules  above. 

A  ship  its  sail  is  spreading, 

For  that  far  tropic  clime, 
Where,  nurs'd  by  fiery  sun-beams, 

The  palm-tree  towers  sublime. 
It  seeks  that  trampled  nation, 

To  every  ill  a  prey, 
Whom  none  have  turn'd  aside  to  heal, 

When  crush'd  in  dust  she  lay, — 
It  seeks  that  mourning  mother, 

Whose  exil'd  children  sigh, 
In  many  a  stranger  region, 

'Neath  many  a  foreign  sky,— 
It  brings  them,  fraught  with  blessings, 

Back  to  her  bleeding  breast, 
Heaven's  peace,  and  Christ's  salvation, 

And  Freedom's  holy  rest. 
Haste,  haste,  on  snowy  pinion, 

Thou  messenger  of  love, 
For  those  who  sow  the  seed  thou  bear'st 

Shall  reap  the  fruit  above. 


BY  REV.  G.  W.  BETHUNE. 

Home  for  the  exiled  nation  ! 

Rest  for  the  weary  Slave  I 
For  Africa,  Salvation ! 

Hope  points  across  the  wave, 
Where  Afric's  golden  river 

Meets  with  the  pearly  seas, 
And  graceful  palm-trees,  quiver 

To  morn  and  evening  breeze. 

The  God  of  love  has  spoken  ; 

"  There  shall  the  refuge  be, 
The  captive's  chain  is  broken, 

The  long  oppressed  are  free." 
The  ransomed  one  returneth 

With  gladness  to  her  shore, 
And  Ethiopia  mourneth 
Her  ravished  sons  no  more. 

The  white  man's  pride  no  longer 

Shall  scorn  the  sable  brow, 
Nor  weaker,  to  the  stronger, 

In  hopeless  bondage  bow. 
Erect  in  conscious  freedom 

The  Negro  lifts  his  head— 
And  God's  own  hand  shall  lead  him 

In  glory's  path  to  tread. 

The  star  of  hope  is  lighted, 

On  Messurado's  steep, 
And  soon,  a  land  benighted 

Shall  wake  from  error's  sleep— 
The  sun  of  God,  arising 

With  beams  of  joy  divine, 
Each  wandering  tribe  surprising, 

Shall  o'er  her  deserts  shine. 


ICT  The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Young  Men's  Colonization  Society  of 
Pennsylvania,  deeply  sensible  of  the  importance  of  despatching  a  second  expe 
dition  to  Bassa  Cove,  before  the  close  of  the  dry  season,  not  only  to  secure  the 
liberty  of  the  highly  interesting  company  of  emigrants  at  Savannah  and 
Augusta,  now  imploring  our  assistance,  but  to  strengthen  the  little  band  sent 
out  last  month,  earnestly  invite  the  co-operation  of  their  fellow  citizens. 

Where  pecuniary  aid  is  inconvenient,  contributions  in  provisions,  clothing, 
implements  of  husbandry,  tools,  spinning  wheels,  a  lathe,  nails,  iron,  castings, 
cutlery,  seeds,  books,  stationery,  and  the  various  articles  of  merchandize 
necessary  for  exchanging  with  the  natives  for  food  and  labour,  will  be  grate 
fully  received  by  A.  &  G.  RALSTON,  No.  4  South  Front  street,  and  donations 
in  cash  by  the  Treasurer,  Lloyd  Mifflin,  252  Spruce  street,  or  by  the  sub, 
scriber,  30  Sansom  street. 

On  behalf  of  the  Committee. 

ELLIOTT  CRESSON,  Chairman. 


FORM   OF   BEQUEST. 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  A.,  his  heirs,  executors,  and  administrators  in  trust  to 
pay  over  (the  profits  or  principal,  as  the  case  may  be,)  to  the  Treasurer  for  the 
time  being,  of  a  Society  called  and  known  by  the  name  of  '  The  Young  Men's 
Colonization  Society  of  Pennsylvania,'  to  be  applied  to  the  objects  of  Colonizing 
free  blacks  on  the  Western  Coast  of  Africa,  and  elevating  their  morals  and  in 
tellects. 


AN  ACCOUNT,  &c. 

Jin  account  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Young  Men's  Coloni* 
zation  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  in  connexion  with  their 
First  Expedition  of  Coloured  emigrants  to  Liberia,  to 
found  a  New  Colony  at  Bassa  Cove. 

THE  YOUNG  MEN'S  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY  OP  PENNSYL 
VANIA,  was  organized  in  the  month  of  April  last,  by  the 
adoption  of  a  Constitution  and  the  election  of  a  Board  of 
Managers.  To  this  measure  its  members  were  determined 
by  the  following  considerations  :  1.  A  belief  that  a  direct  ap 
peal,  should  be  made  to  the  benevolence  and  Christian  zeal 
of  the  wealthy  and  populous  capital  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
of  the  State  at  large,  in  favour  of  the  establishment  of 
a  new  colony  on  the  coast  of  Africa :  2.  The  necessity 
of  prompt  measures  being  taken  to  carry  into  effect,  the 
testamentary  bequest  of  doctor  Aylett  Hawes  of  Virginia, 
by  which  he  manumitted  mure  than  one  hundred  slaves 
on  condition  of  their  being  sent  to  Liberia.  Acting  as  auxilia 
ry  to  the  parent  Board  at  Washington,  this  Society  proposes 
to  carry  into  practice  in  the  new  colony,  certain  principles  of 
political  economy,  which  will  meet  with  the  approbation  of 
all  unprejudiced  minds.  This  will  be  done  by  fostering  with 
more  care  than  hitherto,  the  agricultural  interest ;  checking 
the  deteriorating  influence  of  petty  and  itinerant  traffickers ; 
maintaining  the  virtue  of  sobriety,  the  nurse  and  parent  of  so 
many  other  virtues,  by  obtaining  from  the  colonists  a  pledge 
of  abstinence  from  the  use  of  ardent  spirits ;  and  by  with 
holding  all  the  common  temptations  and  means  for  carrying 
on  war,  or  for  engaging  in  any  aggressive  steps  with  the  na 
tive  population  of  Africa. 

The  announcement  of  these  views  and  intentions,  at  seve 
ral  successive  public  meetings,  at  the  same  time  that  the 
cause  of  colonization  in  general  was  ably  advocated,  made  a 
highly  favourable  impression  on  the  community.  The  re 
sults  were  shown  in  the  addition  of  several  hundred  mem 
bers  to  the  Society,  and  the  collection  of  several  thousand  dol 
lars  towards  carrying  its  contemplated  measures  into  effect. 

The  better  to  ascertain  the  precise  conditions  on  which  free 
dom  was  granted  by  Dr.  Hawes  to  his  slaves,  and  especially 
how  far  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Virginia  would  apply  to  them 
in  case  of  any  delay  in  sending  them  to  Africa,  a  commission, 


52 

consisting  of  Messrs.  Cresson  and  Naylor,  was  despatched 
for  this  purpose  by  the  Board  of  Managers.  These 
gentlemen  were  also  authorised  to  confer,  on  their  way 
to  Virginia,  with  the  Board  of  the  American  Coloniza 
tion  Society  at  Washington  ;  and,  as  the  latter  was  unable,  for 
want  of  funds,  to  carry  into  effect  the  bequest  of  Dr.  Hawes, 
to  obtain  from  them  due  powers  to  act  in  the  matter. 

In  conformity  with  their  instructions,  (by  resolutions  of 
the  Board  of  Managers,)  the  commission  proceeded  to  Vir 
ginia,  and  visited,  in  the  first  place,  the  county  town  of  Rap- 
pahanock,  where  they  procured  from  the  records,  a  copy  of 
the  will  of  Dr.  Hawes.  Thence  they  went  to  the  residence 
of  one  of  the  special  executors,  Howard  F.  Thornton,  Esq. 
on  whose  plantation  were,  at  the  time,  resident  seventy- 
eight  of  the  future  emigrants.  Of  these,  forty  were  males 
and  thirty-eight  were  females,  of  various  ages,  from  sixty 
down  to  two  years  of  age.  Many  of  the  men  are  well  versed 
in  various  handicraft  employments,  four  of  them  being  black 
smiths,  two  carpenters,  two  shoemakers,  two  stone-masons, 
and  one  weaver.  ee  Most  of  them  are  very  intelligent ;  some 
of  them  can  read  and  write,  and  all  of  excellent  characters. 
Domestic  manufactures  have  been  the  constant  employment 
of  many  of  the  females,  and  we  are  assured  that  they  have 
arrived  at  great  perfection  in  them  ;  besides,  nearly  one  half 
of  them  are  accomplished  seamstresses.  In  addition  to  the 
slaves  above  mentioned,  the  husband  of  one  of  them,  living 
in  the  neighbourhood,  has  been  kindly  liberated  by  his  mas 
ter,  the  Rev.  Francis  Thornton,  to  accompany  his  family 
to  Liberia.  He  is  a  carpenter  of  most  excellent  character, 
hardy  and  hale,  and  one  of  the  best  workmen  in  the  place ; 
he  has  a  large  quantity  of  tools,  and  will  be  a  valuable  acqui 
sition  to  the  Colony.  His  master  is  a  warm  and  devoted 
colonizationist,  and  to  him  we  are  indebted  for  much  valuable 
information  relative  to  our  mission,  as  well  as  for  many  other 
favours  kindly  rendered  us." — Report  of  the  Commission. 

The  thirty-one  coloured  persons  under  the  care  of  Mr. 
Hawes,  forming  the  other  division  of  the  slaves  manumitted 
by  Dr.  Hawes,  were  represented  to  the  commission  as  £11 
willing  and  desirous  of  going  to  Liberia.  The  greater  part 
of  the  whole  number  are  members  of  the  Baptist  Church. 
They  are  industrious  and  temperate,  have  always  been  kindly 
and  tenderly  taken  care  of,  and  abundantly  supplied  with 
every  thing  that  could  make  them  comfortable.  "  We  at 
tended,"  says  the  commission,  "  at  one  of  their  religious 


53 

meetings,  and  were  greatly  gratified  by  their  exercises.  We 
submitted  to  them  our  project  of  making  them  a  separate 
establishment  in  Africa,  and  it  met  with  their,  their  master's, 
and  friends'  entire  approbation.  We  conversed  with  them 
upon  their  future  prospects  in  Africa,  explained  to  them  the 
situation  of  the  country,  and  informed  them  of  its  products, 
resources,  and  the  capabilities  of  its  soil,  answered  their  in 
quiries,  and  were  equally  gratified  an'd  surprised  at  their  in 
telligence.  Upon  the  whole,  we  think  them  eminently 
fitted  for  good  colonists,  possessing  among  themselves  all  the 
resources  of  a  little  community — we  believe  that  they  will 
ably  perform  their  duty.  Let  us,  therefore,  be  not  remiss  in 
the  performance  of  ours  ;  and,  under  the  favour  of  Provi 
dence,  the  success  of  the  experiment  cannot  loner  remain  pro 
blematical."* 

The  next  step  in  the  discharge  of  their  delegated  trust  was 
for  the  Commission  to  ascertain  fully  the  sentiments  and 
views  of  the  Parent  Board  at  Washington,  respecting  the 
conditions  on  which  the  Young  Men's  Colonization  Society 
of  Pennsylvania  should  charge  itself  with  the  embarkation 
and  transportation  to  Africa  of  the  liberated  slaves  of  Dr. 
Hawes;  and  with  the  guardianship  of  these  people  when  set 
tled  there.  The  final  result  was  an  acquiescence,  in  the  re 
solution  of  the  Board  at  Washington  by  the  Society  in 
Pennsylvania.  This  resolution  is  as  follows  : 

"That  the  Young  Men's  Colonization  Society  of  Pennsyl 
vania  be  informed,  that,  as  auxiliary  to  this  [the  American 
Colonization  Society,]  the  slaves  of  the  late  Dr.  Hawes  will  be 
transferred  to  them,  to  be  sent  to  Liberia,  and  supported  there 
by  them,  in  a  separate  settlement  or  community  under  the  su 
perintendence  of  such  agent  and  of  such  local  laws  or  regula 
tions,  as  may  be  adopted  by  the  said  Society,  and  approved  of 
by  the  Board;  but  said  community  to  be  considered  as  a  part  of 
the  Colony  of  Liberia,  and  subject  to  the  general  laws  of  the 
Colony  in  all  respects,  as  the  citizens  now  there;  and  that  so 
soon  as  said  Society  shall  signify  their  acceptance  of  said 
conditions,  the  said  slaves  shall  be  formally  transferred  to 
them,  together  with  the  sum  left  for  their  transportation  bv 
the  will  of  Dr.  Hawes." 

In  acceding  to  this  resolution,  the  Pennsylvania  Society 

*  It  ought,  to  quicken  the  zeal  and  benevolence  of  the  friends  of  huma 
nity,  to  be  known,  that  during  the  short  career  of  this  Society,  many  offers  of 

large  bodies  of  slaves  have  been  made  to  it  from  several  Southern  states the 

owners  generously  offering  their  gratuitous  emancipation,  so  soon  as  we  could 
extend  to  them  the  boon  of  Colonization. 


54 

expressly  stipulated  for  the  right  of  making  such  modifica 
tions  and  reforms  of  existing  laws  as  to  enable  it,  in  the  new 
Colony,  to  give  more  encouragement  to  agriculture,  to  pro 
hibit  the  importation,  manufacture,  and  sale  of  ardent  spirits, 
and  to  adopt  an  improved  plan  for  supplying  the  public 
stores,  and  for  the  issue,  by  gift  or  sale,  of  their  contents,  to 
the  coloured  and  native  inhabitants.  These  reservations  have 
been  admitted  by  the  parent  Board.  It  was  also  understood 
by  the  two  Boards,  (at  Washington  and  Philadelphia,)  that 
in  case  the  preparations  at  Bassa  Cove,  for  the  reception  of 
the  new  emigrants  sent  out  by  the  Pennsylvania  Society, 
should  not  be  sufficiently  matured  to  allow  of  their  being 
landed  at  once,  a  temporary  asylum  is  to  be  furnished  for 
them  in  some  of  the  present  settlements  in  Liberia. 

The  preliminaries  having  been  satisfactorily  adjusted, 
prompt  and  vigorous  measures  were  taken  by  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Board  of  Managers  of  the  Young  Men's 
Colonization  Society,  to  make  the  requisite  purchases  of 
stores,  utensils,  clothing,  and  other  supplies,  for  the  future 
colonists ;  and  to  charter  a  vessel  for  the  transportation  of 
both  persons  and  goods.  Success  attended  their  efforts  ;  and 
on  the  24th  of  October  last,  the  good  ship  Ninus  set  sail  from 
Norfolk,  Virginia,  with  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  coloured 
emigrants  on  board.  Of  these,  were  the  manumitted  slaves  of 
Dr.  Hawes,  one  hundred  and  nine  in  number;  the  carpenter 
already  mentioned,  freed  by  the  Rev.  Francis  Thornton ;  a 
father  of  a  family  whose  members  were  emigrants,  and  who 
was  purchased  a  few  days  preceding;  and  a  little  girl,  also 
freed  by  purchase.  In  addition  to  these,  was  a  small  body  of 
fourteen  persons,  who  had  been  freed  by  Mrs.  Page,  the 
sister  of  Bishop  Meade,  and  who  were  offered  a  passage, 
although  destined  for  the  old  Colony.  But  for  all  the  parti 
culars  connected  with  the  embarkation  of  the  emigrants,  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  following  report,  by  Elliott  Cresson, 
Esq.  on  the  part  of  a  Committee  deputed  by  the  Board  of 
Managers  of  the  Young  Men's  Society,  for  the  purpose.  It 
will  be  seen  that  even  in  this  early  stage  of  its  labours,  the 
Society  is  fully  alive  to  the  importance  of  education  keeping 
pace  with  colonization.  In  the  attainments  of  Mr.  Hankin- 
son,  all  the  friends  of  the  cause  have  abundant  reason  to  in 
dulge  in  sanguine  hopes  of  success. 

It  may  be  well  to  mention,  in  this  place,  that  the  superin- 
dent  of  public  schools, — the  vice-agent, — and  the  physician, 
who  is  a  licentiate  in  Surgery,  sailed  in  June  last  for  the  new 
Colony,  from  New  York,  in  the  Jupiter.  Though  young,  Dr. 


55 

McDowell  has  seen  much  of  the  world  in  his  profession,  as  a 
voyager  and  traveller ;  and  he  will,  it  is  presumed,  be  on  the 
spot  ready  to  receive  and  give  such  counsel  to  the  newly 
arrived  emigrants,  as  will  be  required  by  a  due  regard  for 
their  health  and  comfort. 

The  cost  of  the  present  expedition  is  about  $8000,  viz. 
$2500  for  charter  of  ship,  and  $5500  for  stores  and  appro 
priate  goods. 

By  the  terms  of  the  will  of  Dr.  Hawes,  twenty  dollars  a 
head  were  allowed,  and  have  been  paid  by  his  executors, 
towards  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  emigration  of  his  libe 
rated  slaves. 


REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE. 

The  Committee,  appointed  by  the  Young  Men's  Coloniza 
tion  Society  of  'Pennsylvania ,  to  superintend  the  sailing 
of  their  First  Expedition,  respectfully  Report : 

That  they  lost  no  time  in  complying  with  the  wishes  of 
the  Board,  and  at  Fredericksburg,  on  the  19th  inst,  found 
that  portion  of  the  slaves  (eighty-one  in  number,)  which  were 
from  Dr.  Hawes'  late  residence  in  Rappahannock  county, 
already  arrived.  These  people  having  become  acquainted 
with  one  of  the  Committee  last  summer,  expressed  the  most 
lively  joy  on  recognizing  a  friend  in  whom  they  confided ; 
testifying  their  gratitude  for  the  counsel  then  imparted,  as 
having  been  instrumental  in  counteracting  the  efforts  of  indi 
viduals  interested  in  defeating  the  benevolent  intentions  of 
their  late  master,  and  thus  securing  them  a  boon,  the  very 
prospect  of  which  filled  them  with  gladness.  It  was  a  pleas 
ing  indication  of  their  future  habits,  that  most  of  them  were 
found  industriously  employed  in  such  labour  as  they  could 
obtain  for  the  purpose  of  adding  to  the  slender  means  they 
possessed.  To  foster  these  valuable  characteristics  on  the  voy 
age,  we  purchased  a  supply  of  leather  to  give  employment  to 
the  shoemakers ;  and  instructions  were  given  to  have  as  much 
of  our  stock  of  wollens  and  cottons  made  into  garments  as 
circumstances  would  warrant,  our  complement  embracing 
shoemakers,  taylors,  and  seamstresses,  as  well  as  carpenters, 
bricklayers,  masons,  farmers,  blacksmiths,  weavers,  spinners, 
a  dyer,  cooper,  waggon  maker,  and  collier. 


56 

Ontheensuingday,theremainingthirty-onefromDr.  Hawes' 
estate  in  Caroline  county,  Virginia,  having  arrived,  arrange 
ments  were  made  for  proceeding  to  Norfolk  in  the  steamboat 
Rappahannock,  the  following  morning.  There  being  some 
warm  friends  of  the  Colonization  cause  at  Fredericksburg,  your 
Committee  took  advantage  of  the  interest  excited,  and  at  a 
meeting  of  their  young  men,  a  new  Branch,  auxiliary  to 
the  American  Colonization  Society  was  organized.  In 
deed,  we  could  not  but  remark,  that  while  the  whole 
South  was  indignant  at  the  late  attempts  in  the  East,  our 
mission  was  greeted  with  a  warm  welcome  by  all  the  friends 
of  the  negro,  embracing  a  very  large  portion  of  the  good 
sense  and  good  feeling  of  the  community;  and  we  cannot  hesi 
tate  to  believe,  that  a  steady  perseverance  in  these  benevolent 
efforts,  will  speedily  pave  the  way  for  the  moral  elevation  and 
eventual  emancipation  of  the  large  body  of  slaves  held  in 
that  great  State. 

The  22d  was  ushered  in  by  a  bright  morning,  which  per 
mitted  many  of  their  kind  friends  to  accompany  this  highly 
interesting  groupof  one  hundred  and  twelve  (includinga  parent 
who  was  brought  a  few  days  previously,  that  he  might  accom 
pany  a  wife  and  seven  children, — a  little  girl  for  whom  three 
hundred  dollars  was  paid, — and  a  very  valuable  mechanic  gratu 
itously  emancipated  by  the  Rev.  Francis  Thornton,  in  prefer 
ence  to  selling  him  for  one  thousand  dollars) — on  board  the 
boat  which  was  chartered  for  the  purpose.  Many  being  high 
ly  esteemed  members,  and  two  of  them  ministers  in  the  Bap 
tist  Church,  they  had  been  organized  into  a  congregation, 
which  was  joined  in  the  evening  in  their  religious  services,  by 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Hill,  of  New  England,  when  several  addresses 
were  made  and  appropriate  hymns  sung.  Early  next  morn 
ing  we  reached  Norfolk,  and  the  Ninus  having  sailed  from 
Philadelphia  on  the  14th,  (Wm.  Penn's  one  hundred  and 
ninetieth  birth  day,)  was  fortunately  descried  on  entering  the 
harbour;  and,' by  running  alongside,  in  a  few  minutes  our  peo 
ple  and  their  baggage  were  safely  deposited  on  her  decks. 

It  was  gratifying  to  learn  from  John  M'Phail  Esq.  so  long 
known  as  the  faithful  disinterested  friend  of  the  Society,  that 
on  an  examination  of  our  supplies,  nothing  was  left  for  him 
to  provide,  and  that  it  was  the  most  complete  outfit  that  had 
ever  proceeded  to  Africa.  The  emigrants,  on  finding  how 
amply  every  want  had  been  anticipated,  and  the  commodious 
accommodations  of  the  ship, — her  outfit  having  cost  nearly 
eight  thousand  dollars,  two  thousand  two  hundred  dollars  of 


57 

which  was  bequeathed  by  the  will  of  Dr.  Hawes,  renewed 
their  grateful  acknowledgments,  and  seemed  to  forget  the 
pain  of  separation  in  the  prospect  of  comfort  and  indepen 
dence  in  the  land  of  their  forefathers;  but  above  all,  in  the 
providential  opening  thus  presented  for  meliorating  the  con 
dition  of  their  heathen  brethren. 

In  addition  to  our  own  emigrants,  fourteen  entrusted  to 
the  parent  Society  by  Mrs.  Page,  the  sister  of  Bishop  Meade, 
and  intended  for  the  old  Colony,  arrived,  and  were  gratui 
tously  provided  with  passage  and  provisioning  to  Monrovia, 
by  us.  On  the  same  evening,  Edward  Y.  Hankinson  and 
wife,  arrived  from  New  York  with  an  ample  stock  of  agri 
cultural  implements,  and  tools  for  his  workshops,  just  in  time 
to  join  the  expedition.  Of  this  invaluable  couple,  so  highly 
qualified  for  the  performance  of  the  duties  assigned  them  by 
the  Ladies  Association  of  Philadelphia,  your  committee  feel 
almost  at  a  loss  to  speak  in  adequate  terms ;  his  versatile 
mechanical  genius,  and  amiable  and  cheerful  disposition, 
mingled  with  an  intense  love  for  long  oppressed  Africa, 
manifested  by  both,  eminently  qualifying  them  for  their  ardu 
ous  and  responsible  station.  The  climate  of  Africa,  having 
been  prescribed  as  the  last  resort  in  the  case  of  Stephen 
Barnes,  late  a  student  in  the  Theological  Seminary  of  Vir 
ginia,  a  passage  in  the  Ninus  was  proffered,  and  gratefully 
accepted.  Should  he  survive,  we  anticipate  much  from  his 
devoted  Missionary  spirit,  and  his  mechanical  abilities.  In 
the  more  probable  event  of  his  death,  candour  will  surely  not 
charge  it  to  his  removal  from  a  more  salubrious  atmosphere: 
a  result  deemed  inevitable  by  his  physicians,  had  he  staid  a 
few  weeks  longer  in  his  native  clime,  so  strongly  marked 
were  his  consumptive  symptoms. 

Happily  the  return  of  that  day,  so  conspicuous  in  the 
annals  of  Pennsylvania,  as  the  anniversary  of  her  foundation, 
and  the  landing  of  our  pilgrim  fathers — the  24th  day  of 
October,  was  in  all  its  autumnal  brightness ;  and  at  ten 
o'clock,  the  whole  body  of  emigrants  was  assembled  on  the 
deck  of  the  Ninus,  in  company  with  a  number  of  their  reli 
gious  friends.  A  feeling  of  solemnity  pervaded  the  assem 
blage,  and  the  Throne  of  Grace  was  addressed  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Howell,  the  Baptist  minister  of  Norfolk — the  Rev.  Mr. 
Boyden,  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  then  made  a  concise  and 
appropriate  address  ;  after  which,  Bishop  Heber's  Mis 
sionary  Hymn  was  sung  with  touching  effect,  followed  by 
the  Rev.  P.  F.  Phelps,  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  New 
8 


58 

York,  invoking  the  Divine  blessing  on  this  beneficent  enter 
prise.  The  service  was  concluded  with  a  very  feeling 
expression  of  thanks,  on  the  part  of  the  Colonists,  by  Aaron 
P.  Davis,  one  of  their  ministers.  The  ship  having  obtained 
her  clearance,  dropped  down  into  the  stream  at  noon,  and 
went  to  sea  early  on  the  morning  of  the  26th,  with  a  fine 
leading  breeze.  Late  on  the  preceding  evening,  we  took  our 
final  leave  of  our  protegees ;  and,  as  the  charge  has  so  fre 
quently  been  brought  against  the  Society,  that  the  objects  of 
its  bounty  are  coerced  away,  we  took  much  pains  to 
ascertain  their  real  sentiments.  But  even  on  the  eve  of 
departure,  no  lingering  regret  seemed  to  oppress  them. 
They  acknowledged  with  great  apparent  sincerity,  their  deep 
sense  of  the  kindness  extended  towards  them  last  summer, 
in  our  sending  down  a  committee,  whose  frank  exposition  of 
the  disadvantages,  as  well  as  advantages  of  their  new  mode  of 
life,  had  relieved  their  minds  from  the  fears  artfully  excited 
by  the  enemies  of  Colonization  ;  and  on  reminding  them  of 
the  threats  that  we  intended  to  sell  them  to  the  slavers,  the 
loud  laugh  of  derision,  at  once  evinced  their  contempt  for 
the  charge,  and  their  confidence  in  our  friendship  and  good 
faith. 

Your  Committee  cannot  close  this  report  without  advert 
ing  with  gratitude  to  the  signal  success  which  has  hitherto 
been  graciously  permitted  to  attend  every  step  of  the  Society, 
mingled  with  humble  trust  that  our  institution,  based  on  the 
principles  of  benevolence  and  religion,  will  continue  to  enjoy 
the  Divine  blessing.  Among  these,  the  selection  of  emi 
grants,  imbued  with  feelings  of  Christian  love  toward  the 
benighted  children  of  Africa,  and  the  rigid  exclusion  of 
ardent  spirits,  stand  prominently  forth.  The  testimonial  ap 
pended  to  this  report,  (see  Appendix  B,)  respecting  Isaac 
Walker,  one  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  slaves  whose 
freedom  has  been  secured  by  this  first  effort  of  the  Young 
Men's  Colonization  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  presents,  we 
have  every  reason  to  believe,  a  fair  specimen  of  the  character 
of  a  large  proportion  of  our  colonists.  Every  adult  most 
cheerfully  gave  the  temperance  pledge  proposed  to  them; 
and,  as  Capt.  Parsons,  the  respectable  commander  of  the 
Ninus,  does  not  permit  the  use  of  spirits  on  board  his  ship, 
she  has  proceeded  on  her  voyage  in  strict  accordance  with 
the  principles  of  our  Constitution. 

It  appeared  to  inspire  most  of  these  interesting  people 
with  new  confidence,  and  to  excite  a  spirit  of  manly  inde- 


59 

pendence,  when  the  judicious  principles,  adopted  by  our 
Board  for  their  benefit,  were  detailed  to  them.  In  that  of 
confining  the  commerce  of  the  Colony,  at  its  first  settle 
ment,  to  the  Colonial  Factory,  they  foresaw  the  preservation 
of  the  natives  from  the  rapacity  of  unprincipled  traders,  and 
winning  them  to  a  just  appreciation  of  the  advantages  of 
civilized  life ; — a  new  impulse  to  their  own  agricultural  and 
mechanical  pursuits  ; — in  its  profits,  a  provision  for  meeting 
the  public  wants ; — and  hence  the  means  of  supplying  them 
selves,  at  a  moderate  price,  out  of  the  fruits  of  their  own 
industry,  instead  of  being  a  charge  on  our  bounty.  We  have 
every  reason  to  believe,  that  by  thus  implanting  new  and 
powerful  motives  to  virtuous  action,  much  will  be  done  to 
conquer  habits  too  frequently  the  concomitants  of  their  former 
unfortunate  position  in  society. 

In  sending  out  this  first  expedition,  the  great  principles 
upon  which  this  Society  is  to  act,  should  be  kept  distinctly 
in  view: 

1.  Entire  temperance  in  every  colonist: 

2.  Total  abstinence  from  trade  in  ardent  spirits  and  arts 
of  war: 

3.  An  immediate  Christian  influence  and  operation  upon 
surrounding  heathen : 

All  designed  to  accomplish  the  second  article  of  our  con 
stitution, — "  to  provide  for  civilizing  and  christianizing 
Africa,  through  the  direct  instrumentality  of  coloured  emi 
grants  from  the  United  States." 

And  under  the  belief  that  this  institution,  if  adequately 
supported,  will  confer  upon  the  African  race  an  inestimable 
blessing,  and  secure  a  salubrious  and  prosperous  home  for 
thousands  of  slaves,  whose  benevolent  masters  are  now  pre 
paring  them  for  the  rational  enjoyment  of  liberty  ;  but  more 
especially  at  this  juncture,  to  meet  the  pressing  solicita 
tions,  and  secure  the  liberty  of  a  body  of  colonists  of  high 
character  in  Georgia,  long  anxious  to  emigrate  to  Africa, 
(See  Appendix  A,)  we  earnestly  and  affectionately  solicit 
the  patronage  of  our  fellow-citizens,  to  enable  us  to  com 
ply  with  their  wishes, — strengthen  the  colony  noiv  sent 
forth, — present  a  new  barrier  against  the  prosecution  of 
the  slave-trade, — and  hasten  the  regeneration  of  that  long 
oppressed  continent. 

On  behalf  of  the  Committee. 

ELLIOTT  CRESSON. 

10th  mo.  31,  1834. 


60 


APPENDIX  A. 

Savannah,  Sept.  27th,  1834. 

ELLIOTT  CRESSON,  ESQ. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  very  polite  and  truly  interesting  letter, 
under  date  of  the  5th  instant,  came  safe  to  hand,  together 
with  a  copy  of  the  Young  Men's  Colonization  Society  of 
Pennsylvania.  I  assure  you,  Sir,  the  perusal  of  both  afforded 
us  a  large  share  of  gratification,  and  certainly  demand  from 
us  a  proportionate  degree  of  thanks,  which  we  cannot  find 
words  adequate  to  express.  But  we  can  only  hope  and  pray 
that  kind  heaven  may  reward  yourself  and  all  of  the  friends 
of  this  truly  charitable  cause  with  an  eternal  crown  of  glory 
in  heaven.  You  requested  in  yours,  that  in  my  reply,  I 
should  give  some  of  my  views  respecting  the  Colony,  and 
whether  it  would  suit  me  to  go  with  the  October  expedition. 
I  regret  that  it  will  not  be  in  my  power  to  do  so,  as  the 
notice  is  too  short  for  myself  and  friends  to  do  our  unsettled 
business,  sell  our  effects,  &c.;  it  would  require  at  least  two  or 
three  months  notice,  if  possible,  for  us  to  be  well  prepared 
for  our  journey.  My  views  respecting  the  principles  and 
propriety  of  our  emigrating  to  Africa,  I  shall  briefly  attempt 
to  give.  At  an  early  part  of  my  life,  Sir,  I  commenced  to 
consider  upon,  and  endeavoured  to  find  out,  by  reading  the 
history  of  the  world  generally,  in  what  part  thereof  the 
coloured  man  could  enjoy  true  liberty,  but  in  all  of  my  re 
searches  I  see  but  two  places,  Hayti  and  Liberia;  and  to  the 
former  my  most  prominent  objections  are,  their  religion,  and 
their  being  inured  to  revolution  and  bloodshed,  which  I  do 
not  exactly  tolerate,  only  when  it  cannot  be  avoided  ;  since 
that  time  I  see  accounts  of  the  coloured  settlements  in  Canada; 
this  I  do  not  altogether  condemn  in  others,  but  will  not  suit 
me — their  proximity  to  the  whites,  who  must  retain  a  degree 
of  prejudice  toward  them,  particularly  as  their  population  in 
creases  ;  this  we  seen  manifested  in  their  objection  to  their 
first  settling  there.  I  have  been  told  about  Mexico,  Texas, 
and  of  lands  bordering  on  the  Pacific  ocean ;  but  none  of 
these  places  will  suit  me.  Africa,  the  land  of  our  progenitors, 
seems  to  me  to  be  our  only  hope.  Soon  after  the  Colony  of 
Liberia  was  established,  although  my  circumstances  would 
not  admit  my  then  going  to  it,  I  thought  that  it  was  the  most 
interesting  opening  of  Providence  for  the  elevation  of  the 
coloured  man,  and  for  the  civilization  and  christianizing  of 


61 

Africa,  that  ever  was  thought  of;  and  I  do  believe  yet,  that 
the  coloured  family  will,  in  days  to  come,  when  oppositions 
and  prejudices  are  gone  by,  exultingly  acknowledge  that  the 
day  the  Colonization  Society  was  formed,  was  certainly  the 
most  auspicious  day  which  bears  record  in  their  history,  and 
will  bless  the  day  and  the  names  of  those  who  first  thought 
about  Africa ;  and  our  sons  and  daughters  will  bless  us  for 
conducting  them  to  that  land  of  liberty  and  equality,  and  I 
hope  of  true  piety  also.     Sir,  much  has  been  said  here,  as 
well  as  in  other  places,  about  the  Colonization  Society  ;   some 
pronounce  it  chimerical,  and  must  soon  sink  into  insignifi 
cance;  some  make  objections  saying  it  is  unhealthy ;  others 
that  although  we  live  in  a  slave  state,  yet  we  enjoy  many 
advantages,  and  will  have  to  part  with  many  luxuries  and 
comforts  which  we  are  accustomed  to.    All  this  may  be  true; 
but  they  weigh  spoor  proportion  in  the  scale  of  proper  con- 
sideration.       Another    objection    is    brought    forward,    and 
which  is  believed  also  by  many,  that  the  Colonization  So 
ciety  scheme  consists  of  more  policy  than  philanthropy  ;  con 
sequently,  they  do  not  approbate  its  proceedings,  &c.     But 
for  my  part,  I  have  looked  into  their  plans  and  proceedings 
with  a  very  impartial  eye,  and  although   they,  like  every 
other  society,  may  have  some  faulty  members,  yet,  on  the 
aggregate,  are  just  in  their  views,  and  I  do  believe  their  work 
to  be  that  of  pure  philanthropy  and  good  will  toward  the,  at 
present,  degraded  descendants  of  Africa  ;  and  I  do  conscien 
tiously  believe  that  the  founders  and  true  friends  of  this  In 
stitution,  ought  to  have  their  names  enrolled  with  those  of  a 
Howard,  a  Wilberforce,  and  a  Benezet,  and  have  their  re 
membrance  indelibly  engraved  on  the  hearts  and  affections  of 
every  lover  of  freedom  on  earth ;  and  I  do  candidly  believe, 
that  this  little  republic,  founded  through  their  goodness  in 
Africa,  will,  in  less  than  a  century  hence,  hardly  find  its 
rival  in  the  tropical  part  of  the  world.  Our  coloured  brethren 
who  have  gone  as  pioneers  before  us,  condescended  to  ad 
dress  us  by  a  circular,  and  otherwise  inviting  us  to  their  de 
lightful  country,  and,  as  Christians,  our  sympathies  certainly 
ought  to  be  aroused  at  the  call  of  the  poor  heathen,  saying, 
"  come  over  and  teach  us  the  rudiments  of  civilization  and 
religion,"  and  ought  we  to  deafen  our  ears  to  this  cry  of  mercy, 
or  suffer  these  kind  invitations  to  go  by  unembraced?     For 
my  part,  I  do  want  to  go,  although  not  exactly  as  a  mission 
ary  or  teacher,  yet  as  a  helper  in  this  vast  field  of  moral  use 
fulness,  and  if  my  life  is  spared  to  get  to  that  country,  I  will 


be  better  able  to  determine  what  course  to  pursue.  The 
abolitionists  have  many  good  men  enlisted  in  their  party, 
but  many  among  them  have  suffered  their  zeal  to  take  the 
place  of  their  reason,  and  thereby  have  materially  injured  the 
coloured  population,  and  have  brought  their  Society  into  dis 
repute.  The  free  coloured  people  in  this  part  of  the  country 
seem  generally  determined  to  remain  where  they  are,  prefer 
ring  the  empty  name  of  freedom,  to  that  genuine  freedom 
which  they  cannot  obtain  but  in  Liberia.  I  have  received  a 
number  of  letters  from  Liberia,  from  time  to  time,  viz.  for 
seven  or  eight  years  back,  and  most  of  them  from  some  of 
their  most  intelligent  and  respectable  men,  most  of  which 
speaks  highly  of  their  prospects  in  that  country,  and  recom 
mend  my  going  on.  Most  of  these  gentlemen  recommend 
my  going  over  in  the  rainy  months,  or  near  it  as  possible; 
saying,  at  that  time,  the  air  is  purer  than  any  other  time; 
however,  I  do  not  myself  regard  what  season  I  can  get  an 
opportunity. 

We  have  received  a  letter  lately  from  our  friend,  T.  S. 
Clay,  in  which  he  mentioned  of  receiving  a  letter  from  you 
on  the  subject  of  our  uniting  in  your  intended  Colony.  We  ex 
pect  to  hear  from  him  again  shortly  on  the  subject.  We  will 
endeavour  to  make  out  a  memorial  to  your  Society  soon, 
which  we  will  forward  by  mail.  Will  you  do  us  the  special 
favour  of  sending  us  an  answer  as  soon  as  possible.  We  re 
joice  to  find  so  respectable  a  set  of  people  as  those  of  the  late 
Dr.  Havves  going  to  your  settlement.  I  hope  his  example 
will  be  pursued  by  many  others. 

I  have  the  honour,  dear  Sir,  of  subscribing  myself, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

SAMUEL  BENEDICT. 


63 

APPENDIX  B. 

Monte  Video,  Oct.  10/A,  1834. 

Isaac  Walker  was  left  to  me  by  Capt.  John  A.  Thornton, 
by  his  will  of  1817.  Isaac  has  been  to  me,  as  he  has  been 
to  Capt.  Thornton,  a  valuable  and  a  faithful  servant;  and 
upon  one  occasion,  saved  me  (as  I  shall  ever  believe)  from 
injury  or  death,  when  attacked  by  a  ruffian  white  man.  I 
have,  in  consideration  of  his  faithfulness,  given  him  my  full 
permission  to  go  to  BassaCove,in  Liberia,  where  I  trust  God 
Almighty,  in  his  great  mercy,  may  bless  and  protect  him. 

Isaac  is  going  in  company  with  the  servants  of  the  late 
Dr.  Aylett  Hawes,  (amongst  whom  he  has  a  wife,)  which 
servants  were  taken  under  the  patronage  of  the  Young 
Men's  Colonization  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  and  under  the 
care  of  which  Society,  Isaac  wishes  to  place  himself. 

It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  E  give  him  this  letter,  bear 
ing  testimony  to  his  worth,  and  earnestly  recommending 
him  to  their  kind  attention. 

Isaac  is  a  consistent  member  of  Christ's  Church,  of  the 
Baptist  denomination;  but  has  ever  manifested  a  liberal  and 
Christian  spirit  towards  his  Christian  brethren  of  other  per 
suasions. 

It  would  be  needless  to  say  that  he  is  an  honest  man, — of 
this,  his  Christian  character  will  testify;  he  is  an  excellent 
and  faithful  workman, — a  polite  accommodating  man.  It  is 
not  of  necessity  that  he  goes  to  Liberia;  his  character  is  so 
well  established  in  this  part  of  Virginia  that  he  has  been 
for  some  years  doing  business  for  himself.  I  lament  very 
much  that  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  add  to  his  purse,  and  I 
am  sorry  that  my  necessities  have  been  such  that  I  could 
not  permit  him  to  lay  up  for  this  removal,  his  whole  gains 
for  years  past,  but  hope  that  the  agent  of  the  Society  will 
meet  any  deficiencies  in  his  funds;  and  I  do  hereby  au 
thorize  Isaac  to  draw  on  me  for  fifteen  dollars.  I  know  the 
value  of  such  men  as  Isaac  to  the  colony,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  every  encouragement  will  be  given  to  him.  This 
letter,  though  designed  to  be  seen  by  the  said  agent,  I  give 
to  him  in  this  little  book,  to  be  kept  by  him  as  a  memorial 
of  me,  this  10th  day  of  October,  1834,  in  testimony  where 
of,  I  have  set  my  name, 

FRANCIS  THORNTON,  JR. 

Pastor  of  the  Rappahannock  Church,  under  the  care  of 
The  Presbytery  of  Winchester,  Synod  of  Virginia. 


LIST  OF 

SUBSCRIPTIONS  AND  DONATIONS. 


Legacy  of  Dr.  Aylett  Hawes,            £2200  00 
A  Friend,            -            -            -            1000  00 

W.  M.  Magoffin,            -            -            £10  00 
Nathaniel  Chauncey, 

Elliott  Cresson,                                       1 

000  00 

James  Starr,        ... 

10  00 

Beulah  Sansom, 

200  00 

Joseph  S.  Riley,     - 

10  00 

Gerard  Ralston,     ... 

100  00 

Ezi-a  Stiles  Ely,  D.D.  - 

10  00 

Joseph  Warner, 

100  00 

Two  Ladies,  per  L.  R.  Ashhurst, 

10  00 

John  Connell,         - 

100  00 

A  Lady,  per  S.  Caldwetl, 

10  00 

Sarah  E.  Cresson, 

100  00 

C.  S.  Wurts, 

10  00 

Paul  Beck,  jun.     -            -            - 

100  00 

J.  &  W.  Nassau, 

9  00 

Alexander  Henry, 
Samuel  Richards, 

50  00 
50  00 

Dr.  S.  Murphy,      ... 
Miss  Freeman,    - 

5  00 
5  00 

Joseph  Dugan,   - 

50  00 

S.  E.  Cresson,  jun. 

5  00 

Hon.  Samuel  Breck, 

50  00 

Robert  Bald,       - 

5  00 

Miss  Butler,        ... 

50  00 

John  Lambert,        ... 

5  00 

Thomas  Butler,     - 

50  00 

F.  V.  Krug, 

5  00 

Lewis  R.  Ashhurst, 

50  00 

Reeves,  Buck  &  Co. 

5  00 

Richard  D.  Wood, 

50  00 

J.  R.  Davis, 

5  00 

James  N.  Dickson, 

50  00 

C.  P.  Bayard,         ... 

00 

Benj.  S.  Janney,  M.D.      - 

50  00 

William  Musgrave, 

00 

Edward  Tatnall, 

50  00 

John  Richardson, 

00 

John  S.  Henry,      - 

50  00 

C.  Tingley, 

00 

Donation  of  a  Citizen,  - 

50  00 

Frederic  Fraley, 

,     00 

A.  G.  Ralston,       - 

50  00 

C.  Collins, 

00 

Josiah  White,      - 

50  00 

Michael  Baker,      .            -            - 

00 

Matthew  Newkirk, 
Washington  Jackson,    - 
Abraham  Miller,  - 
Joseph  R.  Ingersoll, 
Samuel  Jaudon,     - 
Franklin  Lee,            .            -            - 

50  00 
50  00 
50  00 
50  00 
50  00 
50  00 

Mrs.  L)ewar,        .... 
Edward  R.  Biddle, 
William  Stevenson, 
William  M.  M'Main,  (annual,)    - 
John  Binns,                    do. 
William  B.  Cooper,       do. 

00 
00 
00 
5  00 
5  00 
5  00 

Ann  Humphreys, 
James  Rice,            ... 

40  00 
35  00 

Sylvanus  Lehman,         do. 
Rev.  J.  M.  Dickey,        do. 

5  00 
5  00 

T.  Ellicott  &  Son, 
Peter  Lesley, 
Mary  Cresson,    - 
Rebecca  Eaton,     - 
Z.  P.  Grant,  per  E.  Caldwell,   - 

35  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 

Casper  Morris,  M.D.      do. 
William  Rowland,         do. 
Edward  W.  Howell,      do. 
And  a  large  number  of  small  Sub 
scriptions  and  Donations. 
John  Dickson,  Groceries, 

5  00 
5  00 
4  00 

39  12 

William  W.  Keen, 
John  Elliott,  (Druggist,)  - 
W.  E.  Garrett,  - 
Thomas  Wattson, 
Samuel  Jackson,  M.D.  - 
Benjamin  H.  Warder, 
William  Craig,       - 
Right  Rev.  Bishop  White, 
John  H.  Warder, 
Mrs  Carswell, 
David  Weatherly, 

30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
30  00 
25  00 
20  00 
20  00 

John  Elliott,  Drugs,      - 
Budd  West,       do. 
John  Harned,  Tinware, 
G.  M.  Elkinton,  Soap,     - 
H.  Shriver,  provisions, 
Collins  &  Sherer,  Paper, 
Uriah  Hunt,              do. 
Weigand  &  Snowden,  Surgical  In- 
struments, 
John  Roher  &  Sons,         do. 
S.  C.  Sheppard,                 do.    - 

42  42 
18  00 
31   17 
30  00 
33  50 
23  00 
6  75 

25  00 
15  00 
10  00 
15  00 

M.  W.  Baldwin,     - 
Field,  Fobes  &  Co.        - 
Ellis  Yarnall, 
J.  W.  Gibbs,  (annual,) 
George  Abbott,    do. 
Charles  Yarnall, 
Anna  Frost, 

20  00 
20  00 
20  00 
10  00 
10  00 
10  00 
10  00 

H.  Schiveley,                       do. 
C.  Collins,   Clothing,     - 
Russell  &  Marticu,  Printing, 
John  Reid,  Merchandise, 
J.  C.  Hand,         do. 
W.  M.  Muzzey,  Glass,      - 
Matthew  Carey,  Pamphlets,    • 

10  00 
10  00 
8  67 
5  00 
5  00 
5  00 

COLLECTIONS  IN  CHURCHES,  &c. 

1st  Presbyterian  Church, 
2d             do.              do. 
6th            do.              do. 

£40  02 
77   13 
45  03 
24  00 

Oxford  Ch.  per  Rev.  J.  M.  Dickey, 
Germantown  Ch.  per  Dr.  Neill, 
St.  John's  Ch.  per  Rev.  G.  Boyd, 
Presbyterian  Church,  Wilkesbarre, 

£10  00 
15  75 
6  35 

7th             do.              do. 
8th             do.               do. 

11  05 

per  Rev.  J.  Dorrance, 
Cumbeiland  Co.  Colonization  Soc. 

20  00 
62  89 

10t.h           do.               do. 
Dr  Wylie's,              do. 
Dr!  Cuyler's,             do.(&  a  breast  pin)  28  40 
Methodist  Ch.  per  Rev.  Ch.  Pitman,      46  02 
do.       do.  per  Rev.  J.  Lybrand,        9  13 
do.       do.  per               do. 

Musical  Fund  Hall, 
Northern  Exchange,      - 
Juvenile  Coll.  by  Charlotte  Sproal, 
do.      do.  by  Eliza  Cone,      - 
do.      Society  of  Folk's  School, 

36  66 
25  35 
5  12 
5  84 
5  00 

Methodist  Church,  W.  Chester,  per 

S.  Hallowell,    - 

o  00 

14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  whi|Jl*renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subjected  immediate  recall. 


RE:....  .    .  . : 


IbbZ 


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